Finite
by GliderPilot
Summary: Sequel to Eternal. With one snap of his fingers, Thanos thought he'd saved the world. Those who know otherwise must fight to bring back the world they loved. But the journey will be far more difficult and complicated than they anticipated.
1. Vanished

Hello, people! As promised, I give you the sequel. If you've read Eternal, this will follow from it. If you haven't (please do), I will do my best to have it make sense, but it will probably help in future chapters.

X

Blue light streamed down from the surface. On the tiled bottom, a blue ring rested. The goal.

Julie reached out her hand, snagged it, looked for more. A green stick. Some sort of dirt? It was an outdoor pool; maybe someone was digging nearby and dust blew in.

More dust, drifting down from above to settle on the bottom.

One good look around the pool, and confusion dawned. There had been at least four other people swimming- they couldn't have all gotten out at once, right?

Short on air and wondering if there had been a lightning strike or some such nearby, Julie surfaced. Piles of dirt lay around the pool, perhaps falling through the cracks of a beach chair or half-covered in a beach towel. It looked like half of the people had simply left, abandoning their belongings.

Two lifeguards were talking to each other in hushed voices, probably trying to figure out why their patrons were gone. They must have been watching; perhaps they knew what had happened.

"Hey."

They turned towards her.

"Where did everybody go?"

X

November 09860, flying as Aer Lingus flight 370, was on final approach to Newark airport. In the violently gusting crosswind, Captain Joseph Henderson struggled with the controls. Beside him, a young first officer named Emma Hops managed radio communications.

"Newark approach, Shamrock 370. Approach winds are consistent with reported gusts."

"Roger, Shamrock. Proceed as able."

"I got this." Joseph seemed to enjoy the challenge, or perhaps being able to hand-fly an airplane that relied heavily on automation. Laughing, Emma keyed the mic to respond.

Out of nowhere, the plane jolted violently. Joseph gasped, and disintegrated into brown dust as Emma watched in horrified fascination.

"What the-"

Without Joseph holding the controls against the wind, the plane dipped wildly, left wingtip scraping the ground. Emma grabbed her control column by instinct, easing it to the right and pulling the nose up.

"Shamrock 370 is going around."

"Roger go, Sha-"

The radio transmission cut out mid-sentence. Behind the flight deck door, the startled shouts from the passengers had devolved into hysterical screams. Emma could only guess Joseph wasn't the only one to vanish.

_Please, whoever is doing this, don't take us both._

As the 737 climbed skyward, Emma realized two planes at around ten o'clock were far too close. She was about to radio a warning when the two collided, wing to nose. Burning pieces plunged from the sky.

_Focus, focus... _

Fortunately, the traffic pattern circled to the right. Emma coaxed her plane through two turns and headed back around. A pounding at the door reminded her she wasn't flying an entirely empty plane.

"I'm alright. Just sit down back there."

Exclamations of relief from a flight attendant or proactive passenger; Emma couldn't tell. She was too busy focusing on clearing the area for a turn to base. A Cessna, miles out. Above them, some sort of jet. Nothing too close. Perfect. Flaps down, gear down.

Not even bothering to ask for clearance, Emma steered the plane in. Finally, some luck; the crosswind had dropped. Keeping the right wing down until the last moment, she touched down gently, hit the brakes, and engaged the thrust reversers. At last, down and safe.

Whoever was left, that is.

X

The fertility clinic was as white and sterile as the dishes in which the newest of all humans commenced their lives. Seven technicians worked at various stations in the storage room, either filling a tank with liquid nitrogen, or updating computer logs, or for one of them, thawing a pair of embryos to be transferred into their mother later that day.

They wouldn't make it, and she would remain childless.

A drop in tank pressure was the first noted anomaly. The bulk of the mass of embryos inside was abruptly replaced by a pile of dust that scientists would quickly identify as carbon. Wonderfully complex creatures had been reduced to the fundamental building block of life.

Of course, the clinic workers scarcely had time to raise the alarm before five of them met the same fate. Panic set in, but they still tended to their charges, not knowing what else to do.

Between the "dusting" as it was soon called, and subsequent contamination of their storage tanks, only about ten percent of the embryos survived. Couples that had been desperate for children were left devastated. An entire generation had been all but obliterated.

X

John Edgerton was happily harvesting a field of corn when the destruction occurred. He would eventually be confirmed as the last casualty in the contiguous United States, falling to dust some six hours after the Snap heard round the world.

Not that he had any idea of his impending fame, inglorious as it was. For now, he was simply confused as every other cornstalk, with checkerboard precision, vanished in a shower of dust. Maybe that was what it felt like in the Dust Bowl, some eighty years previously, watching topsoil blow away and with it, any hope of livelihood.

He wouldn't live long enough to know that not only the plants but also the live bacteria in the soil had disintegrated. What corn he had harvested would be the only crop from that particular field for nearly five years, even bolstered by modern fertilizers. Less well-off farmers, including subsistence farmers around the world, never stood a chance.

John and his wife Sally were watching TV later that afternoon. News broadcasts had begun shortly after the destruction began, although the news agencies themselves had trouble with understaffing. A red banner flashed across the screen, reading things like "Millions missing", then "Billions missing", "President among those vanished, sources confirm; Vice President sworn in, to address nation tonight", "Countless civilians vanish, leaving only dust". Then someone had to ask, "When will it end?"

At that precise moment, John disintegrated. Sally's screams would go unheard.

X

The orchestra was in the middle of a piece called "Espania" when a commotion erupted from the audience. A sold-out theater suddenly had many empty seats. Then the music became far quieter, and the balance of instruments thrown off. For whatever reason, most of the string section had been spared, while the winds and the lone percussionist disappeared, leaving their instruments behind. Most would be dented or scratched from hitting the ground.

After long, tense minutes, an announcement was made that the concert was over.

X

When exactly it occurred to everyone that nineteen of the twenty-seven women working in the office had become pregnant at the same time, nobody ever knew. All they knew was what happened when they decided to take a group shot.

At the front of the line, Sabrina was only two months pregnant. She gasped and clutched her belly, as the barely-there swelling collapsed and dusty blood stained her black dress pants. The scene would be repeated three times in their group, with a nearly full-term baby, the oldest of them, inexplicably disappearing from his mother's womb.

Eight of the women completely vanished, taking their babies with them. By then, people had started to realize the pattern. Many gave each other a good look, wondering who would be the next to leave.

Of the remaining seven, four survived with their children, although Rachel lost one of her twins. Most of the pairs -husband and wife, siblings, or best friends- were simply cut in half.

Amanda, four months along, disintegrated around her child, leaving a squirming, bloodstained creature to fall to the ground. By pure instinct, Sabrina caught the little one, holding it gently until, inevitably, it died in her hand. The bereaved father and widower would at least have something to bury.

Kelsey's daughter, three months premature, hit the ground hard, but survived. Once she was transferred to a nearby hospital and placed in an incubator, she perked up and provided some hope to a devastated world.

That left a baby boy belonging to a woman named Betsy. She'd been planning on giving him up. Wrapping the dead one in a Kleenex, Sabrina decided to claim him. No one would ask too many questions in a chaos such as this.

X

Antarctica is, by all accounts, a barren wasteland.

The emperor penguins that breed there have nowhere else to call home. For months on end, of total darkness only occasionally broken by an aurora of green or red, the males of the species hunker down and wait, keeping their developing offspring warm in the hope of passing on their genes to a future generation.

A hope that would soon be dashed for so many.

The humans called it the Vanishing, the Dusting, the Snap, or the Decimation. That last term had often been used to describe a systematic reduction of a group, traditionally by killing one-tenth of its members. More recently, it had taken on the meaning of leaving only one tenth alive, if that.

Technically, the event was supposed to kill half of living creatures. But half of the developing eggs disintegrated before their startled fathers could even wake up from their strange doze. Half of the adults vanished likewise, leaving their eggs behind to freeze on the ice. A few bereaved parents would attempt to rescue an egg, but with only limited success. The freezing cold claimed the young ones within moments.

It wasn't supposed to be a place of conflict, only endurance and patience, waiting for their young to hatch and the mothers to return. Months of nothing, followed by the joy of reunion and finally, finally returning to the ocean to feed.

Even without eggs to care for, the males could not leave. Wandering towards the ocean -much farther away in the middle of winter than it would be in the spring and summer- would prove a death sentence shortly after one left the protective huddle. They could only endure a pointless winter, wondering which of the females would return to help raise the chicks.

In the best of years, many of the chicks would not survive. Perhaps their mother had been claimed by a predator, or by the cold, or by any number of diseases or accidents. Begging food from another mother rarely brought success, and a chick could not live with only one parent to feed it.

When the females did return, far fewer in number than when they'd left, the new generation collapsed in half again. Bereaved mothers would sometimes attempt to steal a chick, but they were unable to raise it on their own and almost universally abandoned their foster offspring. Ultimately, barely five percent of that year's chicks survived to adulthood, instead of the usual nineteen percent.

The birds, however, were unaware of the numbers involved. They didn't know about a string of battles fought on planets other than and including their own. They would never have any concept of what had gone wrong.

All they realized was that they had lost.

X

Jason and his wife Marie were finally ready to take their children home from the hospital. Twins Tim and Sam had been born at only 27 weeks, and had spent months in the NICU.

Bundled each in a blanket, the babies slept happily in their parents' arms. Jason had just stepped through the sliding door when something shifted in his arms. He looked down in confusion to realize Sam had vanished, leaving only dust in the blanket. No clothing or diaper, even. He turned to look at Marie, just in time to see Tim falling to the ground in a shower of brown dust.

Jason lunged to grab him. Too late. The child hit the ground with a horrible snapping sound. He lay absolutely motionless in the dust. His father collapsed to the ground, devastated.

His entire family was gone within moments.

X

Maisie felt like a complete idiot. Chopping onions in the kitchen was supposed to carry no more risk than causing one's eyes to water. And yet, she'd managed to lose control of a dull knife and slash open the tendons in her wrist. Blood streamed over the counter in the two seconds it took her to grab a towel and press it over the wound.

Head pounding from blood loss, she'd called for an ambulance. To her surprise, it arrived quickly. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe they could just get her stitched up and send her happily home.

Maybe not.

The paramedics introduced themselves as Sam and Diane. There was the obligatory exchange of "Good to meet you, sorry it had to be under these circumstances". Probably a five-times-a-day event for them.

Dozing off on the way to the nearest hospital, Maisie was aware of her two rescuers tending to her traumatized left arm, placing an oxygen mask on her face. Then all at once, there was only one of them. Even in her drowsy state, Maisie sat bolt upright and looked around furiously for Sam. Diane was equally in shock, yet retained enough sense to keep Maisie's arm elevated.

"Easy does it. I'm not sure what's going on, but we'll figure it-"

The ambulance screeched to a halt. Diane's first guess, that their driver had vanished also, proved incorrect. The road was blocked with abandoned vehicles and stranded drivers. People were everywhere, milling about in chaos. Already, a few had been crushed beneath or between cars that couldn't stop without a driver.

Overhead, a helicopter clipped one building, the rotor sound changing abruptly, before smashing into another. Fire erupted overhead.

Giving up on driving the three remaining blocks, Diane and driver Emily lifted the stretcher with their patient and simply legged it. Shouted orders to "Get out of the way!" were followed without question by people who wanted someone to tell them what was going on.

Finally, they were at the emergency room doors, where piles of dust marked the last location of half of the would-be patients. Alarms were sounding everywhere, as biomonitors flatlined at their patients' sudden departures.

Even once Maise was transferred to an operating room, she was not out of the woods. Doctors, nurses, technicians, and so on had vanished right along with everyone else. Of those that were left, many had gone out into the streets to render what assistance they could. Diane and Emily, their obligation to Maisie complete, decided to join them.

In theory, having half the usual number of patients meant more resources for the rest. But with only half the hands to tend to them, half the family members to serve as an advocate, a go-between, half the blood donors, even without the mass casualties from the many collisions, the hospital and many others were utterly overwhelmed.

Some called it mercy. They could only call it total destruction.

X

"What did you do?"

The Asgardian out for vengeance had found another eye somewhere, and a battle-axe to go along with it. He was strong. He would survive. Some of his friends would survive with him, but not many. Suffering and devastation rebounded around the world like a shockwave.

Thanos looked at his gauntlet, some part of him already hoping to reverse what it had done. But it was melted and smoking. It would never handle that much power again. Thanos raised it anyway, and the Space Stone lit up.

All that was left was to carry on as planned, and hope that the part of him that grieved for Gamora, that had wanted to be stopped before things got this far, would simply silence itself.

That would have been a mercy he did not deserve.


	2. Flashback

To bookloverZ: I am in fact in the process of publishing a novella called Asylion. Keep an eye out.

I saw Endgame (they did something similar to what I was planning), so I will be incorporating what I can. Anyway, spoilers for Endgame.

X

"Maybe you're not so bad after all."

"Maybe not."

"Thank you. If you were here, I might even give you a hug."

The bottle stopper landed in Loki's hand with a satisfying _smack_.

"I'm here."

Thor smiled.

"Come here, you."

For whatever reason, it wasn't actually awkward to hug, for the first time since Svartalfheim. Loki had some trouble relaxing into it, but wrapped his arms around Thor anyway. For a long moment, they simply held each other, feeling each other's breaths until they synchronized. Then it was over. Thor was still grinning; Loki rolled his eyes for what felt like the millionth time.

"Come on, brother, that wasn't so bad."

"Last time we actually touched, you were zapping me with an obedience disc. Before that, you were threatening me with your beloved hammer, which is tragically no longer with us. Then of course, there was Svartalfheim. You'll understand it's not the best of associations."

"About that. What happened on Svartalfheim, anyway? I checked for a pulse, I told Heimdall to send someone to bring you back, but-"

Loki shrugged and chuckled simultaneously. "You probably won't believe this, but I honestly have no idea. I woke up less injured than I was before, found my way back to Asgard, and I guess you sort of know what happened next." Proper laughs, now. "How long do you think whoever they sent kept looking?"

"Loki, the _Statesman _does have a brig, just in case you've forgotten."

"Actually, I made sure all they can remember is that they didn't find me. Or all they 'could' remember, anyway. They're probably dead."

That was a grim thought, but unfortunately likely. Asgard's entire population had been reduced to a few hundred on board the _Statesman_. Saving them from extinction may have only bought them a few centuries before they died out completely. Thor decided to change the subject.

"Okay, how did you get off Asgard? I didn't see the _Commodore _after you took it to the vault. I figured you'd found somewhere else to go, if you even wanted to leave..."

"Of course I came back. You're hopelessly lost without me, and accordingly, everyone here owes me a huge favor. As for 'how'..."

Loki opened that pocket dimension Thor would rather die than admit to envying. A familiar blue cube materialized between his hands. Thor didn't know whether to laugh or strangle his brother, which was nothing new.

"I had a little help from an old friend. It didn't want to die any more than I did."

Thor settled on laughter. "Grab anything else while you were in there?"

He'd meant it as a joke, but Loki answered anyway, trickster that he was.

"Gungnir and the Casket."

"Of course you did. Hang on to them for me, okay?" Loki nodded. Thor would never admit it, but he was mildly impressed. He grabbed Loki behind his head, just like old times.

"Brother, I have missed you. I'm sorry I didn't say this before, but I'm glad you're not dead. Let's go check on everybody else."

X

"Don't worry, brother. I have a feeling everything's going to work out just fine."

As if on cue, something caught Thor's eye. He turned to ask Loki if he recognized it, but stopped cold at the look on his face, which he could only describe as abject terror.

"Who are they?"

Thor couldn't remember Loki ever letting fear show. Maybe concern, once or twice, such as when he said they had to leave Jotunheim. Of course, he'd been absolutely right. But this was different. This was his brother's worst nightmare, far worse than Ragnarok. After what felt like an eternity, he finally spoke.

"You once asked me who controlled the would-be king. I- couldn't tell you, but you should have kept asking."

With that grim proclamation, Loki spun on his heel and began corralling passing Asgardians. "Come on, get in the escape pods. They can get you to Midgard; you'll be safe there."

Thor was dumbstruck. It felt so much like Ragnarok all over again, but there were even fewer of them this time, and Loki had jumped straight to evacuation. Time was supposed to be nature's way of keeping everything from happening all at once. Something in the universe had broken and allowed all of the things to happen to them, within the span of a week. It would have made more sense if it were a dream, more specifically, a nightmare.

After a long moment, Thor realized he needed to help out. Valkyrie was already fully armored and drawing her Dragonfang. She was certainly good in a fight, but he knew that she couldn't help with this one.

"Hey." He grabbed her arm, and she swatted at him.

"Your Majesty, just because it's a crisis doesn't mean I'm letting you get all familiar-"

"Get in a pod."

She stood for a moment with her mouth open, incredulous. "There's a huge battle coming. We need all the help we can get!"

"If I don't make it, you need to take care of them. I'll do what I can to hold them off. Just go."

Without another word, he shoved her into a jam-packed capsule and sealed the door. He caught one last glimpse of her landing on top of the two young women who'd been keeping Skurge company at the Observatory. Then a ring of explosives fired and the pod shot off to hopefully land on Earth somewhere. Nothing further to be done.

That scene was repeating itself all over the ship. Thor had taken a head count the day after Ragnarok. The Asgardians numbered around seven hundred, about double the capacity of the escape pods. Half of his tiny kingdom would find their glorious death before the day was out.

Loki was helping Korg and Miek into what seemed to be the last pod. Thor tried to shove him into it, too, but Loki pulled a dagger on him. Nothing new, there.

"Brother?"

"I've dodged death too many times." With that simple statement, Loki dragged a nearby man towards the pod. "Get in there. Your family needs you."

_Has the entire world gone mad? _

X

It didn't hurt.

Somewhere inside, Loki realized his neck was broken, which explained the lack of pain. Thor was saying something, but the words wouldn't make sense.

When next he opened his eyes, it was to a world of blank orange. No sign of Thor, or anyone else.

He was alone.

X

Even in her strange limbo, Hela knew something was wrong. Or not _wrong_, itself, but not as things usually worked. Death was supposed to carry its passengers away to their designated afterlife. _She_ was supposed to be gathering the evil dead.

What happens if the goddess of death dies?

She _was_ dead, clearly. No pulse, breathing only by habit. The wounds that had killed her -caused by flying pieces of the planet she used to call home- neither hurt, nor bled, nor healed. Marks across her chest, abdomen, back, arms, legs, face, and skull were traced by odd shapes under her skin. No need to eat or drink, which was probably a good thing since she was in a full orange landscape, completely empty and utterly alone.

If this was her own personal Hel, it was brutally effective.


	3. Favor

Last warning: spoilers for Endgame

X

Solid ground under her feet. She hadn't even realized she was falling.

Plants, growing healthy all around her. Too long since she'd seen that. Green, the color of life, of birth, of everything becoming new again.

The color of her eyes. Perhaps she'd missed her calling.

The large being that tended the garden, she recognized from the memories of his last surviving child. His name was Thanos.

One step forward, and pain shot through every part of her body. Gasping for air, now.

Alive again.

"W- where am I?"

A smile, or else he simply bared his teeth. "Welcome to my home."

The pain lessened with every step. Pieces of her body aligned themselves, joining together. After long minutes, she was completely healed.

"You're welcome."

"Ah- thank you."

Some sort of metal gauntlet on his left hand. _Fused to_ his left hand. It looked old, as if eons out in nature had restored the metal to its natural state. Not that the strangely familiar being looked much better. Battle scars traced over his bald head, his face, his bare right hand. A half-healed wound to his chest was clearly infected. If nothing changed, he would be dead within the month.

"Where am I, who are you, and why am I here?"

"I am Thanos. This is my home. I brought you back because death has been, shall we say, not working as intended." He let out a burst of laughter that made Ragnarok sound happy. "The universe needs death." Piercing eyes landed on her. "What was your name, again?"

Incredibly, she had to think for a moment.

"Hela."

"Hela, I owe you a favor. Claim it."

Ah, that's who wanted Loki back. Even now, she couldn't regret that.

"I want Asgard back."

Thanos tilted his head, no emotion showing. "If I could create an entire planet, don't you think I would have done that instead of wiping out life? I did think of that."

"Right. You're no God. You never will be."

That earned her a chuckle. "You sound like your friend."

"Where is he?"

"He tried to kill me. What do you think?"

That hurt, far more than she would have expected. Her powers were gone. Even if she could find Loki, somewhere out there in the universe, she couldn't bring him back. Not without Asgard, anyway.

"And Thor?"

Thanos gestured at his damaged chest. "Oddly enough, still alive. Alive and kicking."

Without warning, Hela grabbed Thanos by the arm and knocked him to the ground. A hand on his forehead, and she was inside his head. So many horrible memories, even for her. But only one mattered. Loki, gasping for air, somewhere in deep space. She noted the location and ended the spell. Then something struck her.

"You're going to die tomorrow. I can always tell."

Thanos seemed to believe her. He turned and trudged back to a crude shack he must have built after -whatever it was. Nothing elaborate. Then:

"Coming?"

Why not?

The jewels in the gauntlet lit up, as if they were waking up in the morning. A little groggy, perhaps, or resentful at being awoken. Perhaps resentful at being used for slaughter, or forced to work together.

"I actually tried to undo it, almost instantly. They don't have enough power. But maybe..."

Thanos held his hand palm up, and the lights flowed together. Where they joined, like six different rivers mixing to form a new one, a white jewel materialized. Hela watched, enthralled. The core, the heart of Asgard, that powered everything. With it, she could bring back Loki, maybe the others, start over...

Then it was complete, and Thanos handed her the jewel. It nearly burned her hands, but she felt so alive. Pure joy, more than she'd felt even that beautiful day in the garden, more than she'd _ever _felt.

"Thank you."

Thanos almost smiled for real this time. "Take some food if you want it. I have something to do." He turned his hand over and looked at the stones. "There's something I need to do."

"Oh?"

"I can't undo it. I guess it was meant to be. Or the stones didn't like being used, and got vindictive. I'm going to destroy them. Maybe it'll help everyone move on."

Hela was skeptical. "Maybe it'll help _you _move on."

At that, he nodded. "Just go. This will probably be violent."

On her way out, Hela grabbed a cloth bag and tucked the jewel in it, along with some seeds and good dirt. Whatever this planet was, it had a lot of life and growth. Maybe it could help her rebuild.

The shack and the garden had just vanished over the horizon when a surge of power nearly knocked Hela off her feet. So that was it. The infinity stones were destroyed.

If there was a way back, it wasn't with the Gauntlet.

X

The ship was absolutely silent, beyond the rumble of the engines. Nobody felt like talking. After all they'd been through, to have fallen short yet again hurt. It hurt a lot.

Eventually, they passed through the last jump point and resumed normal flying. Earth was within a couple hours' flight. Finally, Stark addressed Nebula.

"If you knew where he was planning on going, why didn't you say so sooner? We could have-"

"I knew _that_ he was going, not _where_. There are dozens of planets that he could have picked. I had no way of knowing which one."

Silence again.

"What now?"

That from Rocket. One had to pity him. The only one of his friends who was still alive was _Nebula_, of all people. Lots of history there. Maybe Thor counted as a friend, but there was certainly blame involved. _Why didn't you go for the head the first time? _

"I need to find the rest of my people. Valkyrie, Korg, Miek, a bunch whose names I don't know, they're out there, somewhere, hopefully heading towards Earth, and when they do show up, someone will have to help them settle in."

Behind them, the stoneless Gauntlet might as well have been another piece of random space junk. The severed Titan hand had detached from it as soon as its owner died. They'd just left the body for whatever happened to it on that particular planet. Scavenging animals, most likely. Nobody cared. It wasn't like they could give anyone who had vanished a proper burial.

All they could to, for now, was help the living.

X

The jewel knew where it belonged. That familiar sun Hela had never liked. But it had its uses, just like so much of the planet she'd proudly called home.

How exactly Thanos knew the source of Asgard's power, Hela could never be sure. Maybe she'd carried pieces of it with her to his strange garden. But the details were not important.

As soon as she released the jewel, it began to pull in the surrounding debris in. A solid rock core built itself up before her eyes, floating in the appropriate orbit around Asgard's mother star. Hela scattered the dirt and the seeds, and soon enough, the rock was covered in green and growing life. Absolutely beautiful.

Hela knelt in the dirt, reaching for the core. That power she'd felt for so long, to touch the dead, she didn't want gone, just changed. The power to grant life, not just a crude semblance. What she had with Loki, she wanted with _everyone_. Not forever, just for now.

In a rare moment of favor, the universe granted her request. She picked up a handful of dirt, and it blossomed into pink and blue flowers. She actually laughed, pure laughter, not scorn. That was the first time in over a millennium.

It was a time for new beginnings.


	4. Miracle

Note: So everyone is on the same page, this is a sequel to my previous fic, Eternal. This probably won't make sense otherwise.

X

Hela's complete invulnerability lasted to that point in space and back. Collecting each body took some time, but she had nothing if not that.

Then they were back in Asgard. There was enough of it now to call it that. Plants grew everywhere, but there were only a few species. Enough to live on, but they needed more. Trees, animals, building supplies, they would have to go looking.

But for now, the dead bodies scattered all around needed her more.

Loki first, in case it only worked once. His neck was crushed, and she caught a brief glimpse of Thanos grabbing him by the throat and _squeezing_. She could feel the pain in her own body.

Shaking it off, she laid a hand on his forehead and their minds touched.

X

Time stopped at the exact moment Loki died. Bodies scattered all around, Asgardians or one unknown species or another. Thanos and his four remaining children stood overlooking the scene. They were dead now, she knew that. No power in hell would force her to bring them back.

Loki lay still on the metal floor, Thor gagged and bound only feet away, but it might as well have been a mile. That was another thing. Her other brother was definitely still alive. He'd probably killed Thanos. But even if this was real, even if she could talk to him, it wouldn't help. He knew her as nothing but a threat, a rival.

Hela didn't regret claiming the throne of Asgard, even now. That was as it should be. But she didn't have to kill the soldiers, the random civilians claimed by the berserkers. No bringing them back. Their bodies had been consumed by the fires of Ragnarok. _Do not mourn, but rejoice._

A brutal jab to her abdomen, and she hit the ground, cursing. Loki stood over her, blood dripping from the dagger in his hand. Even in whatever dimension this was, she still bled. And Loki was still Loki.

"Easy, Loki. I'm a friend." She held out her hands in the universal "I'm unarmed, so don't hurt me" gesture. To be fair, after what had just happened to Loki and everyone else, she would have understood if he tried to kill her anyway. That didn't mean she would let him. It probably wouldn't have done any damage in the real world, but why risk it?

Then it didn't matter. Loki put the dagger away and sank to the ground next to her.

"We're dead, aren't we?" His voice was grating, exhausted, as if he had a badly sore throat. Come to think of it, he probably did.

"_You_ are. _I'm _not, at least, I don't think so."

Green eyes lifted to hers. The same shade as her own.

"Who. Are. You."

Loki glared daggers at her, and she reminded herself that he could make that statement literal if he wished.

"I know I've seen you before. It's like something out of a dream. Not a good one."

"I'm Hela. They called me the goddess of death. I am your sister. I was the first face you saw. The first person who held you." She remembered that moment with him and Odin in the vault. _Do better._ "We'd just defeated the Frost Giants -I'm sure you've heard _a_ story often enough- and we were busy making sure it wasn't going to happen again. Odin effectively traded an eye for the Casket, I had a bunch of those dead soldiers to help out -handy trick for battle, that one- and we were looking for stragglers. I- we didn't find too many, and that's a good thing. I can see that now. Then we checked the temple, or at last I think that's what it was supposed to be.

"Anyway, some of them had tried to shelter in there, for a while. Long enough for one of them to give birth, anyway. As far as I can tell, you were stillborn. Maybe it was just too early. They wrapped you in a blanket, set you in a hole in the wall, and that was it."

Green eyes drilled into her, checking for a lie and not finding one. Wanting to tell _someone_ the whole story, for the first time ever, Hela continued.

"I was completely useless with babies, but dead things, I could handle. I touched your mind, like we are now, and you told me your mother was one of Laufey's queens. You even knew what the Casket was, and that you could use it as a weapon. I- I thought you would make a good soldier, believe it or not."

At that, Loki let out a mirthless chuckle. "You thought wrong. Some do battle, others just do tricks."

Hela knew without asking that he must have heard that from someone else. She could even hazard a guess as to who.

"Now who says you can't do both?"

At that, true laughter this time, from both of them. Hela couldn't remember the last time she'd laughed. Maybe that day in the garden. That hurt to think about. After a few moments, she finished the story.

"I picked you up, brought you back like I did with the dead soldiers, but you were actually in there. You smiled at me and shifted to look like me, except you didn't have hair at the time." She dared to ruffle his black hair, so much like her own, and he tensed at that but did not pull away. After several minutes of quiet:

"Father said he found me."

Hela nodded. "I tried planting memories in his mind, and as far as I know, it worked long enough for him to fall in love with you. Frigga-" here she swallowed, hard, before continuing. "She loved you instantly, fed everyone some story about a surprise baby, and to my knowledge never told a soul that I was involved, bless her. She was an amazing person."

Loki nodded in agreement, but she could tell he was clearly sitting on a question. Most likely, what happened that left her trapped on Helheim. That wasn't a story she would be telling him anytime soon. The last thing her brother needed was more self-loathing.

"Come back with me. We're going to rebuild Asgard."

She extended her hand, and he clasped it. The two of them returned to the land of the living as brother and sister, just as they always should have been.

X

"_Remember this place. Home." _

"_I assure you, brother, the sun will shine on us again." _

"_I am... inevitable." _

"_You talk too much."_

Thor hadn't said a word since the mission to kill Thanos and retrieve the Infinity Stones returned with only partial success. What was there to say?

He'd done too late what he should have done the first time around. They couldn't fix it. Half of the universe had died on his watch. Returning to the last place he'd seen is father offered no comfort.

What had been so special about that particular clifftop? Somewhere Odin nearly died in the Midgard war, that was his best theory. Little to no chance of actually knowing for certain, now.

While the demoralized conglomeration of Avengers, morons, and whoever else was out in space, Thor had thought to ask the talking rabbit to fly them to the place where the _Statesman_ had been destroyed. No one questioned that. Enough of them knew enough of what had happened that they simply agreed.

But when they arrived, there was little to nothing left. Pieces of the ship that had briefly carried an entire race filled a stretch of empty space larger than Asgard's orbit had once been. No sign of bodies. Maybe they'd been disintegrated along with the living. Maybe they'd been sucked into a black hole or some such. Maybe they'd been found by scavengers. Maybe someone gave them the proper funeral they deserved. Maybe a lot of things.

Definitely nothing left for Thor to do.

So here he was, sitting on that same rock, watching the sunset. Pink and gold, layered on top of each other, punctuated here and there by a grey cloud.

Somehow, it reminded him of Asgard.

Out of that beautiful sky came something silver and round. A loud bang as it broke the sound barrier on its way in. Things he'd never bothered to understand, but that new woman had taught them on the way to Thanos. She new so many things about flying, whether in a Quinjet, or using her own powers, or Metal Man's armor. He couldn't help wondering what she would have made of Mjolnir. If she could have lifted it.

Beside the point, now. He would never lift his hammer again, or see Asgard, or tell Loki he was sorry for that last jibe. Loki. _He'd _known to go for the head. Maybe their places should have been switched.

Too late, now, for any of that.

More shapes, now, streaking across the sky. The first one descended, hovered for a moment, glowing engines slowing it to a safe speed, then touched down. Maybe there was something he could do right, at least. All around, the scene repeated itself for each pod.

Doors opened in the sides, and people spilled out. Korg, Miek, the Valkyrie. A dozen-odd random civilians. Joy at seeing each other. Sorrow that he was alone.

The man that Loki had pushed into the pod introduced himself as Albreich. He had a wife and two young children. The four of them fell to hugging each other, overjoyed at their reunion. For that, he could be glad.

It didn't take long for logistics to hit. The pods had come equipped with basic life support, including some food, but that was long gone. They would have to find more, and water, and shelter. There were about two hundred people to feed and care for. Without asking, he knew the decimation hadn't spared them, either.

Just one more way in which he'd failed them.

X

If there was an upside to what had happened, it was that inorganic material had been spared. Buildings, clothing, vehicles, equipment, and so on was in general up for grabs. Some attempts had been made to sort out what was still owned from what was abandoned, and quickly enough the Asgardian refugees were assigned an empty village.

That presented several puzzles from the outset. Most of the refugees were children, and for many of them, a suitable guardian could not be found. Eventually, those who were not assigned to a family found a home in an old "bed and breakfast", if Thor had the Midgardian term correct. Evidently, the village now known as "New Asgard" used to have a lot of guests.

These days, however, it turned away outsiders, instead focusing on rebuilding something of a society. Some became farmers, others fishermen, and the few healers they still had set up shop in a tiny hospital. The equipment was primitive, even by Midgardian standards.

In a way, Thor now understood why Loki had refrained from getting involved in any of the other Realms. The vast majority of Asgard's problems came from outside, not inside.

_Did Loki consider himself nothing but a problem?_

"I miss you, brother," he said to the stars.

X

Hela touched the remaining minds in reverse order. Heimdall she remembered from her youth on Asgard.

He'd seen a man named Balder, hurting his wife, over and over again. Ultimately, watching and doing nothing, as was Heimdall's directive, proved too difficult. Hela found the gatekeeper with a bloody knife in his hands, standing over Balder's dead body. Without a word, she brought the dead man back, in that way she did, and Heimdall sent him into a skirmish on Alfheim. No one questioned his second death, shortly thereafter. Heimdall owed her for that one.

A favor she'd traded on, to conceal her far more successful revival of a tiny, abandoned child.

To her surprise, Heimdall declined her offer to revive him. As he put it, the horrors he'd so recently witnessed, even from beyond the grave, were too much. She hoped he would find peace, somehow.

Most of the remaining Asgardians accepted her offer to bring them back, and soon enough, people, _living people_, surrounded her and Loki. Hela would later assume that Asgard's rebirth had given her, just this once, the ability to truly raise the dead.

An ability she would certainly use to its fullest potential.

A few of the dead weren't Asgardian, and must have come in on the ship with Loki. She made them the same offer she'd given the others, and without exception, they accepted. That, too, was surprising. Whatever life they'd had before, they wanted better.

One last miracle in all of that. Three Valkyries and their steeds. Whether they'd somehow found their way to the _Statesman_ before its destruction, or her retrieval spell had found them lurking in the back corners of Yggdrasil, she never determined, and it did not much matter. Even the golden-haired warrior who had taken a blade for Brunnhilde gladly returned to the land of the living. She introduced herself as Joyanna and said she wanted to start over. Hela couldn't agree more.

Those dead who had been lost without her to guide them, she sent to join the vanished souls in whatever world held them. If the dusting were ever reversed, by some miracle, they would find their way home.

Then it was done, and Hela collapsed to the ground. She'd used too much of her power, even enhanced as it was. To her amazement, she no longer cared if she came back or not.

X

Then there was a bizarre sensation, as cutting open a wound to drain an infection she had no idea existed. Death itself poured from her like lifeblood, and a shadow which had stained her soul for millennia loosed its hold. With her last grasp of her power, she collected it and bound it together, casting it into the realm she'd called prison for years beyond count.

The universe needs death, to collect the souls when it is their time. It is simply part of the process. Nature includes its own corrections. But now, death no longer needed a form, or at least, not hers. Somewhere in the back of her head, there was a voice much like one that had been spoken.

_You have always been the goddess of death, but you can be so much more._


	5. Being

Birdsong, improbably.

Soft grass underneath her.

The scent of smoke, and roasting meat.

Blood in her mouth; evidently, she'd screamed until her throat split.

Loki's concerned face, watching her intently from where he knelt next to her limp body.

"Hela? Sister?"

Air rushed into her lungs, and she choked violently, gasping for air as she sat bolt upright. The world was dark around her, punctuated in many places by familiar stars. Nothing had changed there; the sky was the only constant in her life.

And now Loki.

On impulse, she flung her arms around him and pulled him close. Her brother let out a muffled protest, but hugged her in return. She hadn't held anyone since that violent day in Helheim so long ago, and only now did she realize she'd missed it terribly.

After several minutes of just the two of them, she finally let go and looked around. The base planet was larger than she could see, perhaps as large as Asgard had originally been. Now it was covered in grass, trees, and a river. Some animal species, here and there. The core had served its purpose, drawing in whatever Surtur had left, rebuilding and resurrecting everything that touched it. But now the process had slowed to a crawl, no more than Asgard's previous ability to hold itself together, to allow its people to draw whatever power they had.

Which was in itself remarkable.

Someone had lit a fire, and already, two deer hung on spits over it. The smell was tempting. She hadn't had a proper meal in so long. But there was something else, first.

Loki twisted his hands and Gungnir appeared between them. The only surprise she felt was the total lack of it. He always did like tricks, even during Ragnarok. Mostly, there was just pride.

She was surprised when he offered it to her, balanced across his palms. Awestruck, she laid one hand on it. Power thrummed beneath her fingers. But she couldn't take it, not yet. Loki raised his eyebrows, silently asking permission, and she nodded, rising to kneel in front of him. The surrounding Asgardians quieted, gathering around as they realized what was happening.

"Do you swear to guard the Nine Realms?"

"I swear."

The words, she remembered from her father's coronation. A traditional vow that may have been meaningless. Not much to be done about the other realms, at least until they somehow built a replacement for the Bifrost. Or found a way to the old portal, if it still existed. But she promised nevertheless.

"Do you swear to preserve the peace?"

"I swear."

Easily said, less easily fulfilled. She would do whatever it took to protect her new kingdom, but that would require fighting any threat. A delicate balance that had challenged leaders since the dawn of time.

"Do you swear to cast aside all selfish ambition and to pledge yourself only to the good of the Realm?"

"I swear."

That last promise was definitely going to be the easiest to keep. The last time Hela understood what she wanted, she had surprised her stepmother with a newborn Loki. A fond memory she would have to share with him at some point. But not now. Now, the ceremony was nearly complete. Loki actually smiled at her; that may have been a first since his infancy.

"Then on this day I, Loki, prince of Asgard, proclaim you queen!"

Cheers and applause broke out. All around her, the people of Asgard, who not so long ago had feared everything about her, welcomed her with open arms. With many of them, that was literal, laying hands on her shoulders or Loki's, or on each other. For several minutes, their entire world was as one, all drawing strength from each other.

Then it was done.

Hela rose to her feet, and her loyal subjects followed suit. At her word, the self-appointed cooks began to serve her impromptu coronation feast. There was work to do, to turn this empty planet into a home for everyone, but for now, they would simply eat, and enjoy each other's company.

If nothing else, they had earned that.

X

Something was wrong.

The power over death, which Hela had renounced, was long gone. No sense of loss, there. But then her sorcery, if it even rated the term, dwindled to almost nothing.

That shouldn't have hurt. Everything she'd tried to do with it had gone badly wrong. And yet, it was one more way in which she was no longer distinct from the rest of Asgard.

When she explained this to Loki, after weeks of malcontent, he actually laughed, but there was no true mirth in it.

"My queen," he began with a generous helping of sarcasm, "If you truly feel you have too much in common with anyone, perhaps we should switch places. The only person I remotely resemble is you."

That wasn't entirely true. Loki reminded her most of Asgard's lone trio of children. Curious, even more so than the rest of them, learning not just about their new planet but about the entire universe. Brother-and-sister twins and their cousin, a slightly older girl, they had hidden in a closet during the evacuation. Much to their detriment at the time, but now they were home. No parents or other family could be found for them, so they assimilated into what Hela was starting to consider her court. Perhaps twenty or so Aesir occupied themselves tending to a palace of living wood.

No more golden sham. All about them was green and growing. Green was life.

"Can you teach me your spells? Frigga tried a few times, but-" she pushed the memory away "-that didn't work out too well."

Loki put on a surprised, cautious look. "Perhaps I could, but why would you want that? It's- dishonorable..."

"Nonsense."

At that, Loki was speechless. Hela pressed on.

"You've made a skill out of using the abilities you have, to achieve the desired outcome. Thor uses his lightning and his strength; those are uniquely his. No one faults him for making the most of what he has to work with. They didn't fault me for raising dead soldiers to fight again. Or if they did, it wasn't where I would hear it, which was fine by me. I- I just wanted Asgard to be glorious, and forgot about Asgard actually... being. That was- I would like to start over. Now's a perfect time for that."

Loki sat quietly for a moment, then spoke all at once. "I can teach you something now. Come on!" He grabbed her by the hand and took off at full speed to the river.

Downstream a ways, people were bathing, splashing each other, collecting water for the crops, and so on. But here, closer to the spring that marked the center of Asgard, they were out of earshot and alone.

Loki waded into the water, stopping at knee-deep. Shedding her robe, Hela joined him in a blouse and skirt she didn't mind getting soaked. After a moment, she realized Loki's clothes were still dry, and she wondered if it was a protection spell or if the clothes were just another one of his illusions.

That was a thought she didn't need.

Loki cupped his hands under the water and whispered something she didn't catch. The water flowed up, forming the shape of a person, which she eventually realized was a miniature version of Loki. Another word, and the water froze, leaving an impossibly detailed ice sculpture in her brother's hands. Smirking at the look on her face, he handed it to her.

Hela felt a surge of jealousy as she took the small figurine. Colorless as it was, she could still recognize Loki's favorite armor, which was black and green, and his golden helmet. That color scheme they shared. Black for death. Gold for show. Smile all the time and no one will no the pain inside. People don't question when they think everything is fine.

Small wonder Loki was more fond of gold than she was.

And the green...

"Now you try."

Loki waved his hand, and the figure burst to shards, splashing Hela on the chest and hands. Glaring at him, she did her best to mimic his movements. She spoke the words as he gave them to her, keep it to three words, and to her surprise, the water bubbled up, just a bit, before the magic slipped away.

But it did something.

Over the next few hours, Hela tried over and over again, with more success each time, but taking more energy. Her hands were shaking by the time Loki suggested a break, but she shook him off and tried one last time. Amazingly, her image appeared in the shape of the water, holding for a long moment. She couldn't freeze it like Loki could, -of course not, he's a Jotun for crying out loud- but she could hold it long enough to give it a close inspection. A smile on the watery face, that seemed a bit of a stretch. But then she took a closer look, and gasped, letting the spell dissipate.

"Why does it look-"

Hela didn't, couldn't say it, but Loki had seen what she had.

"You are not as skilled as I am in the art of deceptive magic. The spell depicted you as you are, not as you know yourself."

That made absolutely no sense to Hela. It can't be, it can't...

Loki was obviously trying very hard not to laugh at her shock. "Come on, let me have a look."

Hela nodded her consent, still convinced she was dreaming. That made more sense. She would wake up in the morning, still in her prison, with her parents still alive, Asgard in one piece, the universe not half-emptied...

Then Loki laid his hands on her abdomen, and spoke another trio of words. Incredibly, a golden light materialized in what could only have been her womb. After a split second, it took shape. Hela watched, fascinated, craning her neck around Loki's arms. What would she see if she looked at his face? Surprise, joy, jealousy, anger, it could have been any of those, all of them, or something else entirely. But that was for later.

No longer than one of her thumbs, the tiny being already had a discernible head, eyes, and limb buds. Ribs could be seen under the translucent skin, protecting the important parts from the very beginning. In its chest, a heart already beat, steady and strong.

Then the moment was over, and Loki let the spell dissipate. For several minutes, the two of them simply considered what they'd just seen. Then:

"Sister, you have been keeping a secret."

Hela shook her head, wonderstruck. "I can't- how did that happen? That makes no sense."

Loki just shrugged. "If it wasn't how that sort of thing usually happens, I have no other explanation. But you did just build an entire planet out of a jewel."

To that, Hela had no answer.

Life. Green was for life.


	6. Vision

Note: FFN does not have a dedicated MCU category for some strange reason, so I am switching this from Avengers to Thor, as I have realized it fits better there.

X

When exactly the general population of Asgard learned of Hela's "condition", she couldn't be certain.

One day, everything was as normal as it had become: crops growing, animals being raised or hunted, buildings cropping up here and there as the people required. There was talk of building a new Bifrost, one day. That certainly appealed.

Without Heimdall's sight, they had no way of knowing what went on in the rest of the universe. Hela could understand and respect that he'd found peace in Valhalla, and still acknowledge that Asgard was worse off for having lost its Gatekeeper. They wandered blindfolded through a universe that could be anywhere from the depths of destructive war to the heights of victory and new technology.

Thor and his allies had survived the encounter with Thanos; the titan had not. She could tell that much at the time, but no longer. He could have gone anywhere, done anything, and unless he found his way to Asgard, they would never know.

Loki could sometimes be found staring out into space, as if hoping to catch a glimpse of his wayward brother. Hela couldn't help wondering if Thor ever looked back. Probably not. After the failure at the garden, the Avengers were likely just trying to move on.

Then things changed.

Hela's first reaction had been complete and utter disbelief, and a certain amount of fear. Loki had been doubled over, laughing, and for a moment, she'd grabbed him by the throat, hoping it was another one of his tricks. He'd just shaken his head, still amused.

Then, it had finally hit. Inexplicably, she was growing an entire person.

All at once, one warm day not long after, everyone began to stare at their queen, or more accurately, at their new prince or princess. She never made a formal announcement, which would have been pointless anyway. With only three hundred people, there wouldn't be secrets for long.

There were questions, of course, as to a father, to which Hela answered that there wasn't one, and there wasn't going to be. Much to her surprise, everyone seemed to accept that. Certainly, stranger things had happened. Building an entire planet from scratch using nothing but a jewel, some dirt, and a few seeds was more surprising.

Raising hundreds of dead and it actually working- that, too, was strange. Nothing that she would be able to do again. She would just have to protect the living.

_I am no longer the goddess of death. What does that make me? No longer what the Midgardians used to call me. The Aesir call me "My Queen". The leftovers from Sakaar call me "Queen of Asgard". Loki calls me "Sister". What will this tiny new being call me? _

Amma, Mumma, Mother, there were many options. An endless world of possibilities for her small offspring. But for now, Hela was simply Hela, and the baby was just a baby.

X

Some of the New Asgardians wanted to hold a memorial service. For the ones lost in the Snap, those killed on the _Statesman_, the soldiers killed by Hela, for Asgard itself.

A worthy thought, but Thor couldn't. Admitting they were gone, because he'd failed to protect them, hurt too much.

Some of them tried to comfort him, saying things like "You did everything you could". No. No, he hadn't. Or worse, he had, and it wasn't enough. The former yielded self-loathing, the latter abject terror.

From the window of his appointed house, Thor could see paper lanterns rising into the darkening sunset sky. One for each person they'd lost? There were hundreds, flaming as they climbed and dwindled away to their personal ends. One last touch of light on this side of death. _Do not mourn, but rejoice._

And other useless platitudes.

Hundreds. Something was wrong with that. There had been thousands of adoring supporters at his first coronation, at least as he remembered it. Was that just his ego changing the memories, or had there honestly been that many people? Visitors from Vanaheim, or wherever else, alongside native Asgardians.

That was a thought. According to the local gossip, Loki had banished Sif a few years previously, but to where? So many questions, and there wouldn't be answers, unless Loki were somehow alive out there. Out in the stars.

Once the lights faded away completely, and the Asgardians had returned to their homes, Thor ventured out into the darkness. The stars he and Jane had watched, during those quiet nights when he'd thought he would never return home or see his family again, sparkled overhead. They hadn't changed a bit. How far he'd gone, only to arrive back where he'd started.

_This is goodbye, brother._

_The sun will shine on us again._

"Goodbye, brother," he whispered to the stars, and hoped they would meet in Valhalla. "I'm so sorry."

X

The birth could not come quickly enough.

Hela knew, somehow, that her baby had power. With every kick, punch, or whatever else she did in there -it was a she- Hela caught a glimpse of something. Midgard, sometimes, that one moment she'd spent with her brothers before Thor applied his usual problem-solving technique of "smash it with a hammer". Loki had played the diplomat, as ever.

No way to go back and react better. But all three of them were still alive, so perhaps it was not too late.

For now, though, they had to move on and hope Thor would do the same. Loki would sometimes write letters -"Hi, brother, we're doing fine without you"?- and burn them, perhaps hoping they would find their way somehow. He wasn't the only one. Their whole world had been ripped in half.

Asgard itself was done growing, having reached approximately twice its original size. Plenty of room for crops, for forests, for rivers branching off of the central one to pour over the edge and vaporize, and as far as they could tell, condense on the bottom of the planet to bubble up again from the ground. Wrapped around one third or so of the edge, a small mountain range provided a sense of security, as if they had their backs to a wall. No one could sneak up on them again.

Of course, in reality, anything that crossed the void to get to Asgard itself wouldn't be impeded by a few pieces of rock, but it was a good feeling. The army that crafted weapons from the metal in the mountains, that mock-battled from sunup to sundown, that had pledged its allegiance to Hela of their own free will, would just have to deal with any new threats.

Loki didn't seem worried. As far as he was concerned, if they kept to themselves, the rest of the universe would leave them alone. Hela remembered Skurge mentioning that Loki had done that sort of thing while ruling. Isolationism, or knowing that Asgard couldn't last forever, which meant the other Realms would have to manage on their own? Providing less assistance every trip around the sun was certainly better than cutting them loose all at once. Loki claimed he couldn't see the future, but she had her suspicions.

He was certainly useful to have around.

X

Passing out drunk was supposed to mean that one would awaken the following morning, or afternoon, or perhaps days later, head pounding and memory numbed. But even after two Midgardian years, longer than years had been on Asgard, the memories just wouldn't go away.

Surtur exploding in flames out of Asgard's palace. Destiny fulfilled, at his own command.

Hela's abject horror. _Did you know then, sister, what would happen to the entire universe, because of what we did?_

Thanos couldn't have taken the Tesseract from Asgard's Vault. Whether he plucked the remains of the Space Stone from the wreckage of Asgard, or ransacked the Statesman to get it, would have made no difference. Blaming Loki had been pointless, when the fault was his own.

_No resurrections this time._

Little comfort to be found in the celebratory drinking over the birth of whichever baby was currently crying an entire species awake. No, not "whichever". The first of their children fathered on Earth, by the man Loki insisted on sending to safety. That was a good thought, that Loki had in a way saved two lives.

Or it should have been.

In the dark moments, when alcohol and isolation failed to numb the pain of pointlessly clutching at Loki's broken body in the void of space, he would have traded the entire world just to have his brother back.

X

Time flowed on as it ever had, and the day came when Hela woke up with bands of pressure squeezing around her swollen belly.

Next room over, she could hear Loki walking around, perhaps getting dressed or making breakfast. Little matter. She could manage on her own, for now.

"Hello, little one. I can't wait to meet you. It's a beautiful world, and I want to show you all around." Another pain, sharper this time, and she rubbed her belly.

In an instant, her world exploded. Every inch of Asgard revealed itself to her, even the back of her own head. Some part of her noted her messy hair, and chimed in with, "In my defense, I just woke up."

Then it was even more, the Nine Realms, the stars they orbited, and beyond even those. Countless planets around countless stars, and every one of them touched by Thanos' destruction. Destruction aided by her own hand. No amount of rebuilding Asgard would fix that.

The vision wavered for a moment, and Hela realized that the screams she could hear were her own. Her clothes were already soaked, with sweat and from her water breaking. Someone was helping her out of them, after seconds of trying simply to breathe, she realized it was Loki. _Sweet child._

Then another surge, and she was back in the entire universe all at once. Not the same universe, after all. Ten beings vanished to nothing and reappeared in different places, different times.

One never came back.

One was replaced by an earlier version of herself.

The thunderer had changed dramatically, but still had that spark in him, literally.

They wanted to fix the universe, heal it, but one mistake and the whole thing fell apart. Every molecule in all of creation disintegrated into the fundamental building blocks of all matter. The mad Titan remained, intending to start from scratch. He was no God, and he never would be. What ever redemption he'd found the first time around, it was completely gone.

For some reason, she couldn't see past that point.

Then Hela was once again back to herself, kneeling against her bed as her body fought to birth the child she'd begun to distrust. Her brother's voice, telling her to breathe, push, don't push, breathe, hold on-

"What- what's wrong?" Her voice no more than a whisper.

"Something's around her neck. I assume it's the cord. Just-"

Something shifted _inside _and then a wave of relief crashed over her.

"Okay, that's that. Just push again."

"What- do you think- I've been-"

Then she couldn't speak, as one last massive contraction slammed into her with all the force it could muster. That was probably a good thing. The first thing her daughter heard outside the womb didn't need to be a string of language more colorful than the Bifrost.

Colors that now spun around her before fading to black.

X

The tiny mess of new Aesir that was supposed to be his niece confused Loki to no end.

Every touch of her skin as he'd untangled her umbilical cord had brougth a flash of some new image he could barely register. Too much, all at once.

Then the cord came free, and she was out of danger. At that instant, the images stoopped.

Hela muttered something he couldn't understand and collapsed to the floor as her daughter came free. Regretting his decision to not call for help, Loki quickly checked on his sister -still breathing- before returning to the child he'd laid on the floor.

Perfectly formed, good color under all the blood and whatever else, bruises around her neck from her near-strangulation. Testing out her lungs with whimpers that gradually strengthened into screams.

Her eyes, when she opened them, were pure gold.


	7. Goodbye

Little by little, it became clear what was different about Freyja Helasdotr. Some said that Heimdall had given his sight to the child at the moment of her unexplained conception. Certainly, that fit, but Heimdall could only see the present. Freyja brought up images that Hela recognized as the past, and stranger ones she could only assume were from the future. Or _a_ future, at any rate.

Hela's working conclusion was that Asgard had been new and young at the time, and everything had come alive with it. To no regret of hers. The expectation to produce an heir was taken off of her almost as soon as her reign began.

Not that Freyja would necessarily become queen, not that she necessarily _should_. She was far too young to even walk, yet there was something strange about her. She would proclaim her needs in the traditional manner of infants everywhere, but if the response, by Hela or Loki or, rarely, a nursemaid, was not the _correct_ one, Freyja would _make_ them understand. One touch of her hand, and an image of her need -be it Hela's milk, Loki's gentle touch, a bath, a change of scenery- appeared in her target's mind. Loki suggested it was because she had no other way to communicate a problem.

When she did speak, far earlier than usual, it was "Mumma", "Cloki", and "No", in that order. Nothing else. At least, not yet, and it had been some years. Loki tried to show her some of his simpler spells, but she couldn't speak the required words. Perhaps in time, that would change.

For now, Hela's biggest concern was puzzling out the vision Freyja had given her during the birth. The child's life had been in danger; she'd called for help in the only way she could. But what she'd seen was alarming, and coming up quickly. Within a few years, unless something stopped it. All conventional wisdom said something like "Trying to avoid one's doom will cause it", or some equally useless platitude. But something obviously had to change. All future is potential until realized.

When she broached the subject with Loki, he seemed unconcerned. _He_ hadn't seen the end of the entire universe, only half of it or whatever else Freyja had shown him. No more visions of the future from her now, only the simple requests. Perhaps she was losing that ability. That would probably be kinder to such a young child.

Hela tried to move on, organizing a group of advisors, ordering the training of new healers as well as soldiers, and everything she could think of that would assist in any upcoming conflict.

What else was there to do?

X

Something was wrong with him.

Freyja had shown him a battle, that much he could tell. Many beings he recognized: Thor wielding two weapons and having let himself go _badly_, Brunnhilde, Iron Man, the soldier out of time, Barton, some sort of half-monster-half-man, the "sorcerer", and a few Sakaarians matched against _him_, his Black Order, and his army. Many more he could not name: a child who fancied himself an insect, a talking animal, a talking tree, a woman who touched minds, a man who changed sizes with amazing predictability, a woman with the powers of Iron Man, but who required no metal suit.

They were all going to die.

No matter how many times he played the scene over, something changing a little every time, the end result was the same. One snap to bring back half of the universe, one snap to destroy the _entire_ thing.

Whatever Asgard's role in the upcoming conflict had to be, it wasn't "Just sit here and do nothing". Which was unfortunately all they could do until Freyja showed him what he had to accomplish in order to _not destroy the entire * universe_.

Eventually, out of hundreds of possibilities, he zeroed in on one moment. Iron Man, who had once offered Loki a drink in the face of an upcoming interplanetary battle, couldn't talk his way out of this one. He wielded his own version of the Infinity Gauntlet, but at that last moment, when Loki knew he needed to obliterate _his_ entire attacking force, he couldn't do it.

Annihilating an entire race was a moment of darkness no human could handle.

There was nothing else for it.

X

"Come on, little one, pick up your feet."

Suspending for a moment the question of how to resolve the "problem", Hela was teaching her daughter how to swim. At least, that was her excuse for spending a sunny day splashing in the river with Asgard's favorite princess.

Suspending for a moment the fact that Freyja was Asgard's _only_ princess.

At this particular point, not far from where Loki had garnered moderate success teaching Hela the basics of sorcery, the river was shallow, wide, and slow. Perfect for the toddler to experiment with kicking and paddling. Nothing Hela had been able to do since her imprisonment. Even sunshine was a treasured gift.

Never again would she take such basic elements of life for granted.

Freyja babbled some meaningless noise, looking over Hela's shoulder, and Hela turned just in time to see Loki jump off a huge rock, splashing both of them. All three came up laughing and gasping for air. Lifting Freyja onto her shoulders, Hela lunged at her brother and shoved him under the water. The water responded in kind, splashing back and nearly knocking Freyja off her perch. At once, Loki caught and steadied her, and the horseplay subsided.

This was her family, and she would do anything to protect it. But that wouldn't be enough.

Loki caught the look on her face, and darkened his own to match. Extricating his niece from Hela's hair, he clutched her against his chest like it was the first time, or the last. Maybe he thought the battle would be happening soon. Maybe today was the last day of the universe. Maybe it would be a good idea to treat every day like the last day.

If they all had to die, it might as well be together.

Freyja was showing Loki something, just for him. Hela could only guess at what passed between them. It was an unspoken rule that if someone wanted you to know their vision, they would tell you. And evidently, Loki didn't.

"I love you, little one."

For some reason, that was surprising. Hela realized she may never have heard him say that before, to anyone. Of course it would be Freyja first. She was the easiest to love. The safest to _admit_ to loving.

Loki handed the toddler to her and backed away.

"I love you, too, even if I have trouble saying it. You're my sister. You've taken better care of me than I deserved." He put a hand on the back of her neck, as if trying to comfort her. In reality, Hela was becoming increasingly concerned.

"Loki-"

"I will find you. I swear that by whatever you like." Then he was gone, vanishing in a burst of golden sparkles. Gold for deception. The impression of strength when it is in fact extremely soft, and no value beyond that placed on it by others.

"Cloki," Freyja said, and it sounded like "goodbye". Which it must have been.

Dropping her daughter off with a passing servant, Hela ran after him, following his footsteps with a spell he'd taught her before Freyja was born, when she'd woken in the middle of the night _convinced_ her baby was going to run away and disappear. Perhaps she'd simply misunderstood which one.

"Brother!" she called, and received no response.

_What have you done?_

X

If Loki had the term correct, this was deja vu.

Abandoning his favorite people with the promise of making the world better for them. A mad dash to the edge of Asgard. No shattered Bifrost this time, no Thor to try to save him, but Hela would suffice, he was sure.

At least he wouldn't be gone for long.

True to his prediction, and his training, Hela had arrived at the edge of the world to, presumably, talk him out of it. At the end of the river, water poured over the edge and disappeared. The road was laid out for him. All he had to do was follow it.

"Brother!"

Fear in Hela's voice, that much was undeniable. But he had to do this, and now. In another world, ten beings, most of which he'd fought at one point or another, had a plan and executed it. But they slipped up at every turn. All he had to do was ride one particular wave.

Hela grabbed him by the hand. He clasped hers in return, knowing it was for the last time. The feeling of another sentient being was something he could not afford to take for granted. But he had to let go, _now_.

"I will find you."

At least he left with a goodbye this time, rushed and pointless as it was. He broke away from his sister and raced toward the edge, throwing himself over it and into the void.

No one would be there to pick him up this time.

X

Hela fell to her knees, gasping for air. _Loki..._ She reached out with whatever sorcery she could come up with, trying to find him, but it was pointless. Even with her power over death gone, she knew the moment his body could no longer manage in a total vacuum.

All too quickly, it was just her, kneeling on the edge of the waterfall. Wet moss underneath her folded legs, sprayed water bouncing off rocks to keep every inch of her continuously soaked. No part of her wanted to stand up, go anywhere, do anything.

"Brother-" she began, and cut herself off, because there would be no answers, and she did not even know what the question could have been. _Why would you do that? Have you gone mad? Is this a dream? Please, let it be a dream._

"Mumma."

Freyja reached out to comfort her, and told her a truth she didn't want to hear.

X

Bare hands.

A shovel or a spell would have helped, but she wanted to do this herself.

The first step had been ripping open the palace's floor, made out of living wood. Why they built _anything_ over the core, she could no longer remember, and did not care. Then the digging. Handfuls, armfuls. Some questioned her purpose, others offered assistance, but she turned them all away. This was her task, and hers alone.

Freyja would be fine on her own. If she was correct in her prediction, she wouldn't actually be gone for that long. One of the court was taking care of her. If the prediction was wrong, she would be fine. Or wouldn't. Maybe nothing would be left to be "fine." Maybe nothing would be left to _be_.

Dirt under her fingernails, piling up around the hole, scattered into her mouth, into her eyes. Down, down, down, into the center of Asgard. Water and rock after a few hours. No matter. Above, people were clearing away the dirt and rocks she passed upwards. That, too, was meaningless. All that mattered was heading _down_.

Finally.

One last layer of rock, and there was the jewel, blazing like the sun, beating like a heart. Far larger than it had been when she last saw it, Thanos' one _true_ gift to the universe formed the bottom of the planet as well as the source of her power.

Hela's leather boots protected her from direct contact with the core. But that was no longer important. _Take off your sandals, for this is holy ground._ Who was she to argue?

Bare feet, bare hands. Nothing more than she'd come into this world with. A little left for modesty, because that didn't matter for her purposes.

She reached out into the core, touching the power directly. There was only one possible outcome where they won.

Within seconds, her body disintegrated into a pile of brown dust.

High above her, all Freyja could do was scream.


	8. Infinity

Before we get started, I would like to apologize for the trauma of last chapter, but I won't, because I don't want to lie to you guys.

x

"Heading downstairs to coordinate search and rescue."

"_Heading downstairs to coordinate search and rescue_."

Even now, Loki couldn't resist a joke. Any more than Thor could resist solving every problem he met with Mjolnir and perhaps a little lightning. To be fair, those skill sets had served them well for a millennium and a half.

To little surprise on Loki's part, Thor actually enforced "shut up". With what could only be accurately termed a muzzle. Whatever bond they were supposed to have, even the trace was gone Which was just fine as far as Loki was concerned. Memories of Thor smashing the bridge with Loki holding onto the end for dear life were far too recent.

And now Thor wanted to drag Loki back to the throne of lies, to the "All-father" who couldn't parent one child properly, never mind two.

_Three._

Some whisper in the back of his mind. Irrelevant.

And Frigga- there was a slightly different color to those memories. Less _yellow_, now that he could put a finger on it. She claimed to care for him, that there was a purpose for everything, but something wouldn't let him believe it. No matter.

Thor was busy arguing with the mortals over the Tesseract, over Loki, and eventually won taking them both to Asgard. After lunch with his friends, of course. The story of their lives. Even as a prisoner, Loki would always come last.

Out of nowhere, Iron Man -a name with no imagination, truly- collapsed to the ground, clutching at his chest. Mortals were so weak. Only when the case containing the cube began to slide across the polished floor of its own accord did Loki realize the crisis was a diversion. By Iron Man, by the blonde man who wanted the cube, by _him_, by anyone, it mattered little to nothing.

Purely by instinct, he tried to say something like "Thor, you need to learn to mind your surroundings; someone's trying to steal an Infinity Stone," but the bespelled muzzle prevented even a muffled sound. Conjuring a dagger and impaling Thor with it was tempting, but after a moment, he remembered they weren't brothers anymore.

Then the green beast smashed out of a doorway, the case broke open, the cube hit the floor, and Loki couldn't resist. It called to him in a way he couldn't quite describe. Reaching out with bound hands, he latched on to the cube and fed it all the power he could.

_Get me out of here._

X

Total darkness, what else was new.

Then his eyes opened, and a familiar blue cube shone innocently against a backdrop of colorless stars. He couldn't breathe. Nothing surrounded him to fill his lungs with.

It didn't hurt. It wasn't cold. On the contrary, with nothing to carry away his body's natural heat, he was at serious risk of overheating. He was built for a world where ice, snow, wind, and rain would steal every ounce of warmth they could.

_Blasted Jotun blood._

Not that the Aesir the liars had tried to pretend he was would have lasted any longer.

The stars faded, and soon after that, the cube.

All was nothing.

X

One major conflict later, and already Hela was called upon to perform her usual miracle.

No sign of Nebula or anyone else, so perhaps Loki had tried to escape. No obvious cause of death, either. Muzzle around his mouth, but that wouldn't have suffocated him. A few burst blood vessels, purple against his blue skin, so perhaps direct exposure to the abyss, for the second time in a few days? Then something clicked.

_It only feels like a few days. Time is different here, remember?_

Loki hadn't aged much, but there were so many more scars and half-healed injuries than she remembered. Whatever Nebula and Thanos had done to him, it wasn't good.

"I'm sorry, little one."

Some sort of blue cube, swirling with cloudy smoke inside, had landed underneath him. _That's not bad._ She lifted it with a gloved hand. The Infinity Stone of legend, or an excellent facsimile? Considering Loki's sudden and dramatic appearance, plunging from an unusually clear sky into a dingy lake, she was inclined to believe the former.

Hela could have spent eternity watching the blue swirls, but she had a task to perform. Two tasks, as it turned out.

The portal hadn't changed a bit. As far in as she could go, she carried the stone, until a barrier materialized and she could go no further. Working purely on instinct, as if someone else was controlling her, which perhaps they were, Hela extended the cube, pressed it against the barrier, and watched in fascination as it found its way to Odin's treasure vault. As it should be.

Now for her brother.

Loki lay exactly where she'd left him, hauled out on the rocky shore of a lake she sometimes fished for crabs, but little else. Helheim was the Realm of the dead, after all.

Planting her hands on Loki's cheeks and a kiss on his forehead, Hela cast again the one spell that would reliably succeed. Loki gasped for air, blood shooting from his mouth and nose as he choked violently. Hela poured all the power she could manage into him and when he seemed out of danger, cut it off. Falling backward, Loki slept, waiting for his body to heal on its own. Hela was left to wonder what in all the Nine Realms had gone wrong.

Or right.

X

Waking up came as a bit of a surprise. The woman with hair like his own, even more so. Familiar, though, as something out of a dream. A childhood memory he wanted to forget.

"Wh- ah-"

She handed him a jug of water, which helped soothe his traumatized throat. There was a sense of something fading, of commands not his own that he could now ignore at his discretion.

Memories came flooding back. Killing Laufey. Trying to destroy Jotunheim. He had no regrets whatsoever about the former. As to the latter, he now wondered if that had simply been the wrong target. _Can the Bifrost reach the Sanctuary, if someone knew where to aim it?_ Once Asgard rebuilt it, of course.

Abandoning for the moment that line of reasoning, he turned to the woman behind him.

"Who are you?"

She smiled, or more accurately, bared her teeth with no emotion whatsoever behind it.

"I'm Hela."

"I am Loki."

"Yes, I know."

He was, in a way, surprised that he didn't have to describe himself as "of Asgard", or "Odinson", or even "brother of Thor". For whatever reason, she knew him as he was, or as he was supposed to be. Somewhere in him, that might have felt good. Not that it mattered.

"Why am I here?"

Hela was either terrible or very good at lying. Probably the latter, knowing his luck. She seemed to be struggling for words, and eventually settled on "I'm your sister."

Loki gaped at her, wanting to disbelieve it, yet it made sense, somehow. She did look a lot like him. Then he remembered that it didn't really make sense at all. And she hadn't answered the question of _why_.

She extended her hand. "Odin lied to everyone, about me, about you, about a whole bunch of things, I can only assume. He's unfit to lead Asgard. Come with me, and we can take it away from him."

Now that, he could agree with. Kill Odin -_you reject me, I reject you_. Or let Hela deal with him. That seemed better, somehow. Drop Thor at Midgard with the mortals he loved so much. That was a one-way trip. Not quite as brutal as what Thor had done to him at the Bifrost, but perhaps stripping him of his power would bring them to an equal -_I only ever wanted to be your equal_\- footing. As for the queen-

_Frigga_.

Somewhere in there, he didn't want to kill _her_.

"What about Frigga?"

Hela blinked, perhaps surprised at his concern for the woman he still considered his mother. Or maybe she'd just forgotten about her, if she even knew in the first place.

"Sentiment or utility?"

Good question. Silence seemed to suffice for an answer. Then:

"After we deal with Odin, you can decide what to do with her and Thor. How's that sound?"

Wordlessly, Loki clasped her hand, sealing their agreement. He could only hope Frigga wouldn't die trying to save her husband. It wouldn't be the first time she put her life on the line for someone she loved.

X

Who needs Thor, anyway? All he does is get in the way.

Rocket resented having to scamper on all fours like the animal some called him, but all the better to remain hidden, or be mistaken for a common "rodent". One wearing a "Quantum Realm" suit and control bracelet. Not much to be done about that now.

Jane, whom he recognized from the photo shown during their pre-mission planning meeting, reclined on a couch, marveling at a brand-new planet. There was a wonder, an innocence to her, that he'd never possessed. No time for that, now. Sneaking around wouldn't work here.

"Hi, I'm Rocket."

Jane tipped her head at him. "I'm Jane. I didn't realize Asgard had talking animals."

They don't.

"I'm a friend of Thor's. I can get that out of you." He gestured to the red aura glowing dully from her hands. To his surprise, she didn't immediately agree to his suggestion.

"What would you do with it? Where's Thor?"

"Thor's- busy-" _Can't you come up with a better lie than that? You're a hardened criminal, for crying out loud._

Footsteps on the way. They didn't have long.

"Just-" He lunged at her, snatched her hand, and pressed the button on the device Stark had crafted. Wonderful guy. Genius. Rocket hated his guts.

Red Aether flowed from Jane like squeezing infection out of a badly-healed injury, an experience Rocket had undergone far too many times. The hospitals of the galaxy, while surprisingly willing to help, often couldn't handle his bizarre biology.

Then the device was full, and Jane already looked healthier.

Rocket scampered away with a quick "Thanks!". Where had he learned manners? Not from those scientists, that was for sure, or the other Guardians. Just thinking about Groot and the rest physically hurt. Don't think about that. We're going to bring them back. All of them.

Thor was talking with the woman he'd called his "mother". Unusually perceptive, but that was it. They couldn't take her with them, so for Thor, this was goodbye.

_But at least he gets one._

X

Jane barely had time to register that the Aether was gone, taken by a talking raccoon, when Captain America of all people appeared out of nowhere, Mjolnir and a weird metal glove in his hands.

"Okay, I'm dreaming." Why not? The Aether altered reality.

He pried a red jewel out of the glove, which she could see held three more- green, yellow, blue. "That's pretty," or that was what she tried to say. Her words and her thoughts were garbled like she'd had a few too many Viking horns of whatever passed for alcohol here. Something strong, one would think.

Then the red jewel morphed into liquid and flowed back into her. Of course it did. Nothing so strange could have been fixed so easily by a raccoon. One of Earth's greatest heroes, wielding Mjolnir, wouldn't have stuck it back inside her. That was it, just a dream.

Then Captain America disappeared all at once, taking the glove and leaving Mjolnir, and Jane was once again left to wait and hope some kind of miracle would solve her problem in reality.

X

Hela didn't bother taking one last look at the prison she would never call home. Home was ahead, ruling Asgard as was her birthright. Conquering other planets. Bringing them under her rule, her protection. Raising an army to fight back when Thanos came to them as he did to everyone. _I am the goddess of death. I know when it is time for death, and this is _not _it._

The portal swirled around them, blue and green and orange and yellow and purple and red, as if the building blocks of the universe had been atomized or duplicated or lost from their appointed time and place because of some massive crisis.

_Which perhaps they have._ Some whisper in the back of her head that she refused to hear. Then it didn't matter.

Frigga's garden. The location of one of her favorite memories, or what used to be. _Odin's favorite_, something told her.

Behind her, Loki let out a choking, wordless cry and ran to the woman who materialized behind one of her beloved rose bushes.

"Loki? My baby?"

Both of them were crying. Loki put his hands on her face, as if trying to memorize every contour, every wrinkle that spoke of wisdom, of love, of surviving another journey around the sun.

"Mother."

Then Frigga's eyes met Hela's, and she instantly knew something was wrong. Time and space and reality and mind were out of alignment, and allowed them a few minutes, perhaps no more. This wasn't real. It could never be real. Frigga was gone, having met her glorious death at her appointed time. Asgard was gone, in much the same way. Odin's death was comparatively peaceful, and she could relish that thought.

All they would have was one proper goodbye, then they would be apart until they met in Valhalla. Because they would. That was their fate. Hela could only keep reviving her brother until his time came. That was all she had ever been able to do.

Hela flung her arms around them both, and a whirlwind of images rushed through her head. In an instant, she knew exactly what they needed to do.

Then the moment was gone. Red swirled across the landscape, yellow split them apart, green rushed forward, and blue sent them where the universe needed them.

Loki and Hela awoke side by side, as they always should have been, with the universe at stake in a battle being fought all around them.


	9. Assemble

One more chapter after this, I think.

X

Red-orange circles materialized all over the place opposite a ship Hela recognized from memories not her own.

Beside her, Loki drew a pair of daggers from his pocket dimension. Smirking in that way she'd inadvertently taught him, he flung one at a bizarre creature she couldn't name, and she doubted Loki could, either. But it was trying to impale some mortal female- bizarre outfit, skin like Heimdall's. A lot of her friends hopping through portals to join the battle, chanting war cries as they went.

The woman didn't react, and Hela realized Loki had concealed the two of them from everyone's view. Good call, that, as pretty much anyone here would have tried to kill them.

Hela drew her swords and joined in.

X

Some woman he hadn't seen before winked at him. Short blonde hair, glowing skin, dressed a bit like the man out of time, smashing her way through everything. A bit like Thor, except Thor had never been able to see through his illusions.

Where is Thor, anyway?

A matrix of orange-red portals that looked familiar, somehow, and not in a pleasant association. Beings of every species under every sun walked or jumped or flew through to join in. Asgardians, from the group on Midgard, a Valkyrie on a pegasus, most of the Avengers he'd escaped from them what felt like yesterday. It had been some time, judging by the noticeable signs of aging on the part of the humans, but Loki now realized he had no idea how quickly they aged. He knew almost nothing about them at all, as it turned out.

Time to learn, after the battle. Time for everything else in the universe, after the battle. Well, for most of them. The spider with blood-red hair had not put in an appearance, and he knew that would not change.

And Iron Man.

It was absolutely ludicrous how many times Stark's reverse-engineered knockoff of the Infinity Gauntlet changed hands during the battle. The Spider-child. The Valkyrie. Now back to its creator, to be used for its final purpose.

Heedless of the blades and projectiles flying past, Loki simply walked up to Tony. Thanks to that horrible scepter, he could still control minds, just for a moment. Or so he hoped. One moment was all it would take.

Thanos snapped his fingers, intending to unmake the universe down to its fundamental building blocks. The snap sounded dead, no other word for it. No more useful than a way one child might annoy another, with either the noise or the fact that one could do it but not the other. Metallic, naturally, considering the gauntlet. Thanos looked at his empty gauntlet, simultaneously confused and impressed.

Right in front of the Mad Titan, Iron Man had somehow snatched all six Infinity Stones. In his hand, he held the ability to end the entire battle with one simple gesture. The universe would overcome its greatest threat and move on to simple, ordinary, everyday battles with only an entire world at stake.

And the Iron Man would not be able to do it. He was too much of a human. He couldn't obliterate an entire race.

But Loki could.

All it took was a nudge. One moment, one brief suggestion, that was enough. Tony snapped his fingers, the opposing army began to disintegrate, and Loki withdrew. The last person he would ever try to mind control, he was sure, would have his mind to himself. Not that he would live for much longer to appreciate it.

Mission complete, Loki retreated.

X

Blades, an occasional spell, stealing life force. Nothing she hadn't done a thousand times over, perhaps at her father's command, perhaps otherwise.

Brunnhilde was back at it, riding a Pegasus she'd found somewhere, or was that another Valkyrie? All over the place, worlds were colliding, warriors from every corner of the universe and for all she knew beyond that to join in the battle.

Then something shifted.

A sound that could only be described as dead metal. Not that metal was ever alive, except maybe Mjolnir and whatever it was Thor was currently using to smash everything in sight. He hadn't changed much.

Hela herself hadn't changed a bit. Stab one of Thanos' children through the heart, bring back a half-alive version of him, make him kill his own soldiers. A trick as old as time, it seemed. Had they been born for this moment, and none other?

Visible only to her, Loki touched the mind of the metal-clad man, a skill he'd learned only recently. Just enough darkness to complete the necessary task.

The man had been saying something she couldn't hear, but the snap of his fingers was as clear as a bell. All around them, Thanos' army gradually disintegrated into that brown dust she'd come to know. Loki returned to her side, a satisfied smirk on his face.

There was one last task to perform.

The metal man collapsed to the ground, his wife coming to comfort him. Hela knew, in the way only she could, that he didn't have long. But his soul wasn't for her. Wherever the mortals went when they lived and died well, she had never been able to see it.

Sinking to the ground, Hela sent out a projection only a few would be able to see. Death itself looked different to every being. Collecting the souls of every single vanished soldier took an eternity and no time at all, but it had to be done.

No resurrections this time.

Where did that come from?

Casting the ill-lived dead into their respective afterlives, she realized her projection was fading with them. That was fine. That was more than fine. Death could find a different host. She caught a glimpse of a black-robed figure with a red face, and actually shuddered. But that was as it should be. Death should not be welcomed. Rage against the dying of the light.

Nor will we mourn, but rejoice-

Shut the * up. Grief is an emotion that serves a healthy purpose.

Those who lived well would be greeted by a very different figure, but that, she could no longer see. Death had left her to live her own life. Never in her memory had she felt so alive.

Bodies were no longer disintegrating all around Hela, but more were still forming. Those disappeared in the Snap, those who died in a more mundane fashion, simply as collateral damage. Everyone was coming back, just as the battle was winding down.

Through one of the portals, Hela thought she caught a glimpse of a wooden palace, of a jewel beating like a heart, of a river flowing over the edge of a world. A tiny girl with beautiful blonde hair waved at her. Hela didn't wave back.

Then the portal slammed shut.

People of all sizes, shapes, and whatever else they could come up with were heading in every direction. Most of them were trying to stay together, perhaps inquiring as to the date or location. As with a fish cut from the line. Drop them back in the water and they'll be dazed and confused, but glad to be alive. Just swim around for a bit until you get your bearings.

Some of them were pregnant. One woman held twin boys in her arms. An older man with four gold stripes on each shoulder. A cluster of young mortals scantily clad even for a warm spring day. Others dressed as for some formal event. Through one portal or another, Hela fancied she could see plants, animals, and all else returning to their appointed places. Everything was back to the way it was supposed to be.

The massive interplanetary battle had drawn attention from the various mortals in the area. Some, with the look of soldiers, almost looked disappointed that they hadn't been able to help. Others had joyous reunions with some of their friends, or rivals, or lovers. Already, a few were asking the new arrivals what had happened, what was it like, where did they need to go, and so on. Stories would be told of this day for as long as the humans would remember, which was perhaps longer than she'd once thought. They had a strength to them that they'd utterly lacked when first she'd visited Midgard.

X

Gamora was, to be honest, utterly confused.

Skipping ahead nine years, and the whole world had gone badly wrong. But now, it seemed all was resolving, leaving her to pick up the pieces of her own life, or whatever it was supposed to be now. No more chasing those demon Infinity Stones for not my father.

The second Nebula had said they'd become sisters again. After trying to kill each other, repeatedly. Believable enough. Falling in love with that guy? A little harder. He was a complete idiot.

None of which was Gamora feeling at this particular time. She was supposed to be in love, supposed to care for her sister, and at the moment, she felt only the emptiness of having lost the one purpose she'd followed since leaving her home planet all those years ago.

At one point, she'd had the idea to check on Zehoberei, and what was left of it. Thanos claimed they were better off having lost half of their people, but it didn't look that way to her. When she'd been a child, the greatest minds they'd come up with had been working on solving their many problems, trying to become more efficient, even looking towards the stars and saying yes, perhaps we should go there. All of that was gone. The remaining people had no concept of hardship. Waste was everywhere, curiosity was dead. Gamora was the only member of her species to even set foot on a spaceship.

Which was what she was doing now.

There was that saying, to put your own oxygen mask on first. She needed time, and she needed space. After she sorted out her own thoughts, she could find Nebula and what was his name again, and deal with whatever they were supposed to be then.

One of the many abandoned spaceships, Skycharger according to the nameplate on the stern, looked promising: undamaged, unoccupied, and fully fueled. That was all she needed. She climbed in, closed the doors, and began pre-flighting her new vessel.

Something behind her, not exactly heard, but twenty-whatever standard years of practice told her she was not, in fact, alone. She turned to look at the closed doors, but no one was there. Rather, no one she could see was there.

"Who's there?"

A sound not unlike a sigh, then two figures appeared in the back of her ship. One female, one male, they looked like siblings, or perhaps mother and son.

"I'm Hela. This is my brother, and sidekick, Loki."

Loki glared at her, but said nothing. Gamora shrugged.

"Come with me if you want, I guess, but I don't even know where I'm going."

"Perfect. I have somewhere to go."

"You do?" This from Loki. Hela nodded. Gamora didn't bother questioning.

"Okay. Just punch it into the nav and we'll get going."

As Gamora started the engines, it became clear that Hela had no idea how a touchscreen worked. Undertones in a language she did not know, but the inflection sounded something like:

"This is so stupid."

"I've done this before; let me help."

"I don't need help. Just leave me alone."

Loki backed off and began strapping himself into one of the seats before a begrudging "Loki" drew him back. Again guessing at their words, she thought she picked up "Send us to-" Asgard she definitely recognized, and suddenly remembered where she'd heard the name "Loki" before, though they hadn't met. Nebula had mentioned finding a dead Asgardian, taking him somewhere to revive him, and throwing him at Terra to see what would happen.

At this rate, they would have a nice long trip to nowhere in particular unless the wonder twins resolved what sounded to her like "Why would you want to go there?" and "Just do it.". But that was still only a guess.

Eventually, whatever they did got through, and the ship lifted off the ground. Hela and Loki strapped in behind her and off they went.

The Skycharger was smart enough to monitor its occupants' vital signs and avoid subjecting them to excessive g-forces. Whatever the exact species of her traveling companions, they were obviously tougher than they looked. Only Gamora's body modifications kept her from passing out as they climbed straight up an out into the wild black yonder, for the first time in her life not having to worry about where Thanos was sending her.

This was true freedom.

X

"So, where are we going?"

Hours of space travel later, punctuated twice by a "jump point" all in hexagonal gold, and only now was Gamora asking that question. Other than that, the trip had been largely quiet, with only the rumble of the engines and an occasional beep from the computer to break the utter silence of deep space.

A handful of times, Hela had tried to make conversation, perhaps by inquiring as to the nature of one passing structure or another. Gamora was lost in thought, while Loki had squeezed his eyes shut as soon as the sky around them turned black. Too many bad associations after having plummeted through space twice, or more? Maybe he only wanted to wake up when they got to Asgard. If that brief glimpse of the little girl wasn't what she thought it was, Hela resolved to find somewhere else to go before waking him. He'd been convinced it was destroyed; something told her otherwise. But why get his hopes up?

Dinner was a few rehydrated meal packs that defied all meaningful description, washed down with some sort of liquid that was probably supposed to be chemically purified water. Hela had scavenged meals while in prison mostly out of habit, but now that she was actually hungry, it was something of a letdown. Whatever. She'd eaten worse.

Apparently realizing she would get no answers, Gamora offered to mind the ship if they wanted to get some sleep in one of the bunk-pods, stuffed in a bag in a box in the walls. Loki declined, saying he wouldn't be able to sleep, and after a moment, Hela realized she would have had the same problem. Their strange, green-skinned crewmate seemed unburdened by such concerns, and soon enough, gentle snoring from the back of the ship added a nice background hum.

After more than an hour of silence otherwise, wherein Loki opened his eyes for perhaps a total of thirty seconds, and Hela had a brief impression of an owl blinking in the sunlight, she finally spoke.

"Talk to me."

Loki took a deep shuddering breath, and Hela realized he'd been trying not to cry. Then he chuckled with no mirth whatsoever.

"I wanted to die. It wasn't that bad of a few on the way out-"

Something clicked, and she could almost hear it.

"I know I died. What happened?"

"What makes you think I know?"

"I've had too many people lying to me, or, you know, omitting certain truths, to take any more."

Fair enough.

"Some blue creature named Nebula brought you to me. I brought you back, because that's what I do, and she took you away to wherever for whyever. Said something about her father owing me a favor."

At that, Loki pulled a dagger from somewhere or nowhere at all, pointed it at her, and backed against the wall.

"You- sent me- to that-"

He was breathing hard again, eyes wide in some mixture of fear and anger that was perhaps understandable.

"Do you have any idea what they did to me?" A quick spell lit up inside his body, and Hela could see numerous fractures in every bone she cared to check- ribs, arms, skull, and so on; some were fresh, pointing to the Avengers, others halfway or completely healed, properly or otherwise.

"Does it hurt?"

Loki shrugged. "I figured out how to turn off pain a while ago. Actually, I kind of turned off feeling anything, at all." He trailed off, seemingly lost in thought.

Hela would have offered to heal him, but she'd only ever been good at that sort of thing when the injury was fatal. Maybe they could find a healer somewhere to fix it. Maybe they would just have to deal with it.

"I'm sorry. Not for bringing you back, but for sending you off with Nebula. She-"

Something occurred to her, and she spun to face Gamora, who stood silently at the back of the cockpit, swigging from a jug of an unidentifiable blue liquid.

"I found some alcohol in a 'secret compartment'. Want it?"

Screw it. Hela grabbed it from her, took a healthy swig -first drink in a millennium- and passed it to Loki, who looked completely numb.

"How long have you been standing there?" His voice was hoarse, and Hela realized he was completely exhausted in every way. Gamora shrugged carelessly.

"Long enough to know that bailing on Thanos when I apparently did was the correct call."

Now both of the siblings were glaring at her.

"Full disclosure, he stole me from my home planet when I was a child, and turned me into a weapon. I guess I eventually left, but I seem to have jumped forward in time, somehow. Now my rival is saying we're sisters, my so-called 'father' is dead, maybe I should be sorry, but I'm not, apparently I fell in love with some ridiculous guy, and oh yeah, what was that, anyway?"

Gamora gestured backwards, apparently indicating the massive battle they'd left in the dust. Loki glared at Hela with something like "You explain."

"I think we're forward in time, too. We tried going home, but it seems to have been destroyed. I had some -I guess you could call it a vision- of coming to a battle and, you know, 'helping'..." Her strange and now departed ability to gather dead souls was probably too bizarre for Gamora. Come to think of it, even she had never truly understood it. Death had existed before her; she must have only been a host for it. Passing the torch, as it were. "Anyway, we woke up in the middle of a battle, did what I guess we were supposed to do, and now the universe is saved. Or something like that."

They sat in silence for a while, watching various celestial objects fly by. Then:

"Where are we going?"

X

Some days later, after their odd trio had become accustomed to the sensation of space travel, all-too familiar to Gamora but newly mundane and slow to Hela and Loki, they eventually arrived at a strange new planet.

It didn't look much like the Asgard Hela knew; this one was larger, far less developed, emptier somehow. Perhaps it had simply changed in so long, but one glance at Loki revealed that he didn't recognize it, either. All bets were off.

"I guess we'd better land, hadn't we?"

Without waiting for an answer, Gamora steered the ship in. Some sort of field where a handful of sheep had been grazing before the ship's sudden and dramatic arrival scattered them into a nearby forest. Little doubt they had never seen a spaceship before. Touchdown was gentle enough, and then there was the total lack of movement, the sound of the engines spinning down, followed by utter silence. Too much silence after the constant thrum of the Skycharger's propulsion and life support. Then the doors opened.

Wind, carrying a fresh scent that felts so alive and rich after nothing but bottled air.

Birdsong, and the odd scared bleating.

The taste of grass, fresh dirt, nearby flowers.

Her body responding to Asgard's core power, every inch of her thrumming with energy, boots on the ground, twigs, grass, and rocks under her feet.

Plain curiosity on Gamora's face, Loki trying to hide his joy -I know when you're lying, dear brother, I always do-, clear blue sky overhead, people coming to greet the new arrivals: a few soldiers, some healers, others with the look of farmers, or perhaps blacksmiths, all adults save a trio of adolescents, and a little child leading them.

Blonde hair, gold eyes. That was right, Hela knew that, in the same part of her that knew something remained of Asgard and its people. Stranger still, people seemed glad to see them. That wouldn't have been her first guess.

"Mumma!"

To Hela's complete shock, the toddler let go of the hand she'd been holding -belonging to a healer- and ran towards her, leaping into her arms. Hela caught her purely by instinct, and the moment their skin touched, hand to hand, a flash of something touched her mind. I am your Mumma, aren't I?

Beside her, Loki was snickering.

X

It was strange to be led to a palace of living wood, that was apparently her own, by a crowd of Asgardians she did not recognize, but who adored her and Loki nevertheless, who welcomed Gamora likewise once they realized she was a guest.

The girl in her arms -Freyja, she now remembered- held on for dear life as they reached the palace, most of the crowd dispersing to one task or another.

A gaping chasm in the middle of what looked to be a throne room. Something glowing and moving all the way at the bottom.

Hela knew what to do, somehow. But it required letting go of her daughter. The toddler, barely old enough to walk, held on for dear life.

"Hey, sweetheart, I'll be right back. Just wait right here for a few minutes, okay?"

Freyja shook her head, burying her face in Hela's shirt. "Mumma."

Gamora vanished for a moment, reappearing with a blade of grass. Splitting the end with her sharp fingernails, she slid it between her lips and blew, letting out a sharp whistle. In Hela's arms, Freyja stiffened, fixing her brilliant gold eyes on the green-skinned woman. Then:

"Gam!"

Freyja grabbed for Gamora's blade of grass, squirming her way over to her new best friend. For her part, Gamora was confused as to how the little girl knew her name, but held her nonetheless and removed her from the palace to teach her the art of grass whistles.

The child happily out of the way, Hela and Loki removed their shoes and began their descent into the pit. Palace roots and broken rocks provided plenty of handholds, but at least twice, Hela lost her grip and skidded down a dozen-odd feet before catching herself again. Loki, by contrast, kept up a steady descent, smirking at her on occasion.

Then they were at the bottom.

Wordlessly, the two of them knelt on the beating heart of their home planet. It had rejected them both at one time or another, but now it welcomed them with open arms. Power flowed into them, restoring memories once lost, healing old wounds to body and soul. For a moment, brother and sister glowed with Asgard's life force.

Then it was done.

Hela and Loki climbed up the sides again, as rocks and water and earth flowed back into place behind them. Everything was back as it should be. They were home.

They stood on a living floor grown from the planet Hela had brought forth from the dying gasps of Infinity Stones. The woman who had once been a goddess of Death surveyed her dominion and saw that it was very good. Time to rest.

That night, as the royal family tucked themselves into beds that felt absurdly comfortable, Freyja smiled as she laid a hand on her mother's abdomen. Hela stiffened, an oddly familiar sensation washing over her.

Not again...


	10. After

Wherein Thor and Loki finally talk about things.

Thank you for reading! Let me know if you have any requests for future stories!

X

Asgard was in shock.

The dramatic disappearance of both their queen and their prince had left them leaderless. Their princess was screaming, but refused to show anyone what she was seeing. Her uncle leaping off the bridge for no apparent reason yielded a level of confusion only matched by the bewilderment at her mother's abrupt and urgent need to touch the center of the planet.

A need which left her as nothing but a pile of dust.

No one wanted to enter the palace after that. The gaping hole was left unfilled, and the sun set on a realm that could only hope tomorrow they would wake up to find it was all a dream.

Instead, they awoke to a glowing orange circle through which they could see a scene of utter devastation. A building no one could recognize had been smashed to pieces on a world a handful of them had once visited. All around, more circles emerged, warriors from every corner of the galaxy flocking to the call.

Then the master appeared, dressed in a strange cloak. His feet never touched the ground. Power flowed from his hands like water from the ground.

"My name is Doctor Strange. We're fighting Thanos to save the universe. Join us in the battle if you wish."

Behind him, an ominous figure could be seen. A figure all too familiar to many of them. He and his children had killed every single person on their planet.

They wished.

X

"Brunnhilde."

The dark warrior let her mouth fall open in shock. "Joyanna? Is that you? How are you alive?"

Joyanna just shrugged. "Darned if I know."

After everything that had just happened, half of the universe reappearing followed by an entire army falling to dust, some questions would remain unanswered.

Behind them, Strange's portals were transporting people back to wherever they'd come from, for those who wished. Others were finding their way home through mundane means. An epic interplanetary battle had devolved into a massive logistical puzzle.

Most of the Asgardians returned to their new planet, or the small town in Norway that had welcomed them. Brunnhilde wanted to tell Thor about her shield-sister's reappearance, but he was already gone. After a moment, she realized it would be too painful for him.

Not everyone had returned.

X

The battle was an odd picture, to be sure.

Two bald aliens -one blue, one purplish grey- hacked indiscriminately away at "Adam", some gold alien with a metal exoskeleton. A sentient tree with an extremely limited vocabulary repeatedly grew branches, severed them, and hurled them into the fray. A raccoon with cybernetic implants added blaster shots to the mixture, but they ricocheted pointlessly off of Adam's armored skin.

Some half-human-half-crazy who fancied himself a legendary outlaw fought primarily with noise; after setting up constant loud music, he was doing his best to _talk_ Adam to death. Then there was the insectiform empath who likely could have sent Adam to sleep with a touch had she been able to get within arms reach of him without being brained by flailing, weaponized limbs. Currently, she lay on the ground at the shore of a dusky lake, barely aware of the battle raging around it.

Rounding out the odd group was a "twice-the-size-means-twice-the-power" former king and his lightning rod/battle axe. Multiple attempts to overload or short-circuit Adam's systems brought no success, and the bizarre Sovereign creation was far too agile for the axe to physically connect.

In short, seven-on-one was insufficient odds to this particular task: kill Adam before he killed all of them.

Nine-on-one, perhaps...

Thor lifted Stormbreaker high in the air, and a giant bolt of lightning shot straight up into the darkening sky, striking a passing ship before rebounding outwards into the lake. Much to Thor's irritation, Adam leaped out of the water a split second before he would have been struck. _Dang it... What is this going to take?_

Overhead, the electrified ship spun out of a turn, plunging from the starless sky covered in blue lightning that sparkled out of existence seconds before the ship smashed into the water.

Thor winced. "Sorry!"

The seven Guardians charged en masse into the fray, attempting to engage Adam all at once. Unfortunately for them, this wasn't some bizarre interdimensional beast that fed off of the batteries that had gotten them into this whole mess in the first place. It wasn't a vengeful Kree out for everyone else's blood. It wasn't even a sentient planet with delusions of divinity. This was the Sovereign priestess' synthetic progeny, designed at its conception and altered every step of the way to destroy specifically them.

And it seemed to be working.

Adam had no words, only weapons. He was completely immune, as far as they could tell, to their previous efforts to talk him out of his directive to _exterminate_. In a way, Thor almost felt sorry for him. Not that it mattered. They still had to kill him. It. Whatever.

The people in the downed ship, on the other hand, could perhaps be helped. Thor turned to look, but Nebula was already on her way in, smashing open the cockpit windows and extracting two beings. He caught a glimpse of green -skin or clothes, he could not say- before having to return to the fight.

More lightning. Rabbit and Star-kid firing blasters all over the place. "I am Groot." Drax standing perfectly still and looking surprised when Adam electrocuted him anyway.

Then Adam took a hauntingly familiar dagger to the face.

Rolling with it, Thor hit the dagger with a blast of lightning, nothing he hadn't done before, and the gold creature twitched violently, dropping to the ground multiple limbs that were firing at random. The Guardians ducked for cover behind whatever tree or boulder or rubble or mound of dirt they could find.

Out of nowhere, a green woman who rang a bell, somehow, appeared with a sword. Low-tech, even if such things were Asgardian tradition, _had been_ at least, but it worked. Adam's shields couldn't guard against it. For whatever reason, his mouth lacked even physical armor, and the blade drove directly through, spiking out the back of Adam's head. Limbs flailed about uselessly, fighting back by instinct, leaderless, but they and all else soon collapsed to the ground and did not move again.

Then all was quiet.

"Gamora?" This from Star-head.

She removed the sword from Adam's destroyed body, stuffed it in its sheath to self-clean, and only then did she turn to her once-family.

"Even after all this time, you still need my help."

Not much to be said about that. It was obviously true.

"I am Groot."

"Hey, there. You've gotten nice and big." Gamora patted one leafy branch, and some sense of relaxation spread through the group. Their thoughts turned to the other person Nebula had rescued, and Thor dropped Stormbreaker in shock at the figure standing by the edge of the lake.

"Loki?"

Thor took one step towards his brother, halted, grabbed a piece of discarded Groot, and threw it towards his brother with his usual impeccable aim. Loki reached out and caught it with a satisfying _smack_.

"I'm here."

X

The Guardians were busy having some happy _loud_ reunion that apparently required music to wake the dead and drinks to numb the living. On the opposite side of the lake, Thor and Loki sat together on the sand, lost in thought. Loki periodically skipped a stone across the surface of the water, counting the bounces before it finally sank. One wave of his hand, and the stone soared back up into it, ready to be thrown again. The cycle repeated itself at irregular intervals, the two brothers simply enjoying each other's company on a warm summer night.

Finally, Thor broke the silence.

"I really missed you, brother."

Loki took a deep, shuddering breath. When was the last time Thor had said that? On board the _Statesman_, maybe. Those were memories he would have rather not regained, but they'd been the last with his brother.

"Asgard is back." _Start with the big thing, right?_

Thor narrowed his eyes, and Loki realized his brother hadn't gotten any more confident in his own ability to see through a lie.

"It's true, I promise."

At that, Thor took Loki's face in both of his hands, inspecting him closely. Loki rolled his eyes, realizing Thor wasn't even sure it was _him_.

"I turned into a snake just so I could stab you after I got jealous about the whole lightning thing. I turned you into a frog just to see if I could. I turned Sif's hair black because I kept thinking about a woman with black hair, and it was bothering me."

Then he paused.

"I- somewhere in there, I can still remember that memory Thanos put in my head, of trying to hold on to the bridge, and of you smashing the end so I fell off. But that's not quite what happened, is it?"

Some memories still hadn't returned, even between the jewel and Freyja's touch. Another surprise Thor probably wouldn't believe.

Thor shook his head. "You were trying to use the Bifrost to destroy Jotunheim. There was a time I would have done that myself, but not then. More important than that, even, I didn't want my baby brother to have that much blood on his hands-"

"It was a bit late for that. Since then, I've succeeded in blowing up a planet, and I've had a hand in destroying an entire army. Yes, I was at that battle. I didn't let you see me."

Thor seemed to accept that, and continued.

"I don't regret breaking the bridge. But then you jumped at me to stop me, and we both went over the edge-"

True memories came rushing back, shoving out the counterfeit ones, and Loki finished the story.

"Even after I'd nearly killed you, you grabbed me instead of the bridge, because you'd rather die than lose me. Father-" He hesitated. "I'm not misremembering that, am I?"

A rustle of blonde hair as Thor shook his head in confirmation. "He told you no. I'm not sure even now what you'd been asking, but the look on your face, it was like the light just went out of your eyes. I would have given _anything_ to be holding your hand then, not just the spear. But..."

Loki finished the story, memories falling into their unpleasant places.

"You were willing to die for me, and I couldn't lose that. If you found out what I am, you would have hated me. Or that's what I thought, anyway."

They lapsed into silence. Thor attempted to copy Loki's stone-skipping, with the completely unsurprising result of no skips at all followed by one big splash. Loki couldn't help laughing.

"Okay, so what happened with Asgard?"

"I think time stopped after -you know-" Loki mimed squeezing. Thor nodded, catching his meaning. "Hela showed up, claimed she was there to help, and brought me back. Brought almost everyone back, actually. Not Heimdall, sorry. But when we woke up, we were on what looked like Asgard, still does, only it's larger and not built up. We've made a home of it."

Thor blinked. "How is Hela alive?"

Loki just shrugged. "She's not said, or how she fixed Asgard. But she's not like when we met her earlier. She's queen, obviously, since that wasn't ever going to be my job, and she's doing well enough. Oh, and you're an uncle now."

That last bombshell was apparently too much for Thor, who burst out laughing. "You have a kid? When did that happen? Or should I say 'how'?"

_Don't go there._ "_Hela_ has children. A little girl named Freyja, who can see a lot of things. Not exactly like Heimdall, but enough that we've been keeping an eye on you. It took us a while to get the ship working again -thanks for wrecking it, by the way- so we could actually get here, but we always knew where you were."

"Freyja." Thor tested the name like it was a bow and arrow. A little twang to it. "What's she like?"

Loki thought for a minute about how best to describe his enigmatic niece. "She looks a lot like Mother, actually. She can sometimes touch people's minds when she wants to communicate. That's probably a good thing, since she doesn't really talk. People have taken to calling her the goddess of memories, which fits well enough. Every now and then, she'll show me something from the past, or something that hasn't even happened yet, which is how I knew about that battle. Well done, by the way. That was _glorious_."

The sarcasm was strong with this one.

Thor had to laugh, then realized, "You said children."

"Twin boys, after the battle. They remind me so much of us. They can't even walk yet, but they're always fighting. But woe betide anyone who crosses either of them. Then they jump to each other's defense like best friends."

"Just like us, huh?" Thor clapped Loki on the shoulder. "Some things just never change."

Loki couldn't help but agree.

X

In theory, Thor could have used Stormbreaker to beam himself and Loki to Asgard. Lacking any prior contact with the fabled rebuild of his home, he would have needed Loki's help figuring out where exactly to go, but they could have done it.

In the end, though, the rest of the Guardians were curious about the new planet, and Thor was reluctant to leave his new best friends. So it made the most sense for everyone to fly there in the _Milano_.

Silence reigned for most of the trip, with only an occasional "I am Groot" to break the monotony. Nothing much to be said. Gamora still seemed hesitant around her old friends, but they were gradually warming up to each other. Nebula broke out some sort of root with a quip that "It's ripe this time", which drew laughter from all of the Guardians but went straight over Thor and Loki's heads.

Hours and jump points came and went, and then they arrived. Thor strained to look through the cockpit windows, and a cloud appeared. Some sort of jewel sticking out of it. It took him a moment to realize the planet was upside down. Beside him, Loki and Gamora were snickering. He grinned at them as the ship plunged into the cloud and flipped over, bursting _up_ through the surface of the water. Shouts and expletives filled the ship as the Guardians realized what was going on. He couldn't help laughing. Loki was still one for mischief.

Water poured off of their ship, sparkling in the sunlight. A couple hundred people cheered and waved as they flew up a river, heading towards the heart of the planet before landing in an empty field. The doors opened, and they disembarked into bright sunshine.

Thor could hardly recognize the dark-haired woman who came to greet them as Hela. She'd bound her black hair behind her head and dressed in a simple green shirt and pants. Nothing anywhere near as flashy as when they'd first met. Good. It was a time for starting over.

From behind Hela, a small girl with blonde curls flung herself into Loki's arms, giggling.

"Cloki!"

"Hello, there."

Loki set her down gently and went to greet Hela. "Sister." They clasped hands briefly before she turned to the others.

"You must be the Guardians of the Galaxy," she said, with enough sarcasm that Thor had to laugh. She was so much like Loki. "I've heard all about you. Have a look around, get some food if you need it. You're welcome to stay as long as you like."

Their small band dispersed, leaving Hela and Thor face to face. Loki collected Freyja and withdrew to a safe distance. Eventually, Thor decided to break the tense silence.

"Your majesty."

At that, she smiled, and it was surprisingly pleasant. "Welcome home, brother."

X

They feasted in the open air. No shining palace of war-stolen gold to close out the beauty of their planet and the sky surrounding it. They were bound to the world that gave them strength, to the others of their realm who gave them friendship.

The two little boys, Hod and Nari, insisted on sitting on either side of Thor. Every now and then, one of them would lean forward or backward to throw some piece of food at the other. Sharp words from Hela or Loki did nothing to dissuade them. Nothing they meant, anyway. Today was for celebration.

Food and drink flowed aplenty, and soon enough, most of the population had either fallen asleep or passed out. Gamora and Nebula had slipped away, Thor assumed to talk somewhere, while their friends had passed out drunk. Most of the surrounding crowd had done likewise. Sleeping forms were scattered here and there in grass that would soon forget having been trampled underfoot. Everything grew here.

Hela slipped away to put Freyja to bed, leaving Thor to comfort a fussy Hod while Loki held on to a sleeping Nari like they were the last two people on Asgard. It was an odd sight, Loki with a barely-walking baby who trusted him so completely, but it was so _right_.

Getting a proper look at the crowd, Thor realized some of them had lived on Earth for a while. They'd returned home somehow, and he caught a brief glimpse of Doctor Strange's portals. Some had wanted to come here, and rebuild their planet. Others had become attached to the home they'd built on Earth. Families were reunited, and left to make their choices.

Now he could finally accept that Asgard would manage quite nicely without him. The thought freed him from any guilt over leaving Brunnhilde in charge, but it was something of a letdown that he had no clear role anymore.

Thor and Loki found a comfortable place in the grass and curled up next to each other as if they were children again. Their younger counterparts slept happily between them without a care in the world. All as it should be.

When the sun came up, it shone on them again.


End file.
